Number of results to display per page
Search Results
35102. Marc Jacob. Precedents and Case-based Reasoning in the European Court of Justice: Unfinished Business Valériane König. Präzedenzwirkung internationaler Schiedssprüche: Dogmatisch-empirische Analysen zur Handels- und Investitionsschiedsgerichtsbarkeit [The precedential effect of international arbitral awards: Doctrinal and empirical analyses of the Commercial and Investment Arbitration]
- Author:
- Niels Petersen
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- <p>The concept of precedent has not received much attention in international law scholarship to date. International courts and tribunals are usually not formally bound by previous decisions. Nevertheless, there is no denying that precedents play a significant role in the practice of international courts. Courts cite and rely on previous decisions in order to lend their arguments more force. Two recently published studies aim to shed more light on this tension in the use of precedents: while Marc Jacob analyses precedents in the case law of the European Court of Justice, Valriane Knig examines the precedential effect of decisions in international arbitration. Both books not only analyse the same concept in different contexts, they also have a common methodological point of departure. They rely to a certain extent on an empirical analysis. They construct a database of decisions and draw several quantitative and qualitative inferences from this database. They thus contribute to a laudable trend in international law scholarship towards a greater focus on empirical analyses, even though the extent and the informational value of the quantitative analysis are limited in both cases./p
35103. A Pronunciation Lesson
- Author:
- Jonathan Shaw
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Not hi ROSH ima – Everything before and after the central rush of spit mere prelude and pathetic aftermath
35104. Sleepwalking Again: The End of the Pax Americana 1914–2014; After Gaza 2014: Schabas; Peer Review Redux; In this Issue
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- I think it is difficult to contest that the most important state player in world affairs over the last one hundred years – and consistently so over this period – has been the United States of America. World War I – into which, to borrow from Christopher Clark's justly celebrated book, we 'sleepwalked' – marks a useful starting point. It is not only the fairly important role America played in bringing WWI to an end that signals the beginning of this era, but also the no less important role it played in shaping the aftermath. Wilson's 14 points were considered at the time 'idealistic' by some of the yet-to-be 'Old Powers'. But by dismantling the Ottoman Empire through the principle of self-determination (not at that time a universal legally binding norm) it was an early swallow to the demise, a mere generation later, of all other colonial empires and the truly decisive reshaping of the balance of power in the post-WWII world. The US played an equally cardinal role in ideating and realizing the United Nations Organization and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – two lynchpins of our current world order.
- Topic:
- Human Rights and War
- Political Geography:
- United States, America, and Gaza
35105. The Emergence of Functionalism in International Institutional Law: Colonial Inspirations
- Author:
- Jan Klabbers
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The theory of functionalism dominates the law of international organizations, explaining why organizations have the powers they possess, why they can claim privileges and immunities, and often how they are designed as well. Yet, the theory of functionalism is rarely spelt out in any detail, and its origins have remained under-explored. The purpose of the present article is to outline how functionalism came about by focusing on the 'pre-history' of international institutional law. To that end, the article studies the work of a number of late 19th, early 20th century authors on the law of international organizations, paying particular attention to the writings of Paul Reinsch. It turns out that functionalism, as developed by Reinsch, was inspired by his familiarity with colonial administration: colonialism and international organization both manifested cooperation between states. While this is no reason to discard functionalism, it does provide an argument for viewing international organizations more critically than functionalism habitually does.
- Topic:
- Law
35106. Over-stating Palestine's UN Membership Bid?An Ethnographic Study on the Narratives of Statehood
- Author:
- Michelle Leanne Burgis-Kasthala
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This study employs a select ethnography of Palestinian workers in the field of international law and human rights to explore how an epistemic community gives content and meaning to international law in its professional and personal life. Through a series of interviews conducted in the West Bank in the wake of the Palestinian attempt to gain full United Nations membership in September 2011, the article constructs a meta-narrative about the nature of international legal discourse as spoken on the Palestinian periphery. It shows how speakers of international law are required to restate or over-state the distinction between law and politics so as to sustain their hope and desire for Palestinian statehood in the face of despair about its protracted denial. The article then is an exploration about the politics of meaning making through international law and a call for methodological hybridity within the discipline of international law.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, International Law, Politics, and United Nations
35107. Complexity Theory and the Horizontal and Vertical Dimensions of State Responsibility
- Author:
- Mark Chinen
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article argues that a gap that has always existed in the law of state responsibility is now becoming more apparent. That gap divides a state from its citizens, making it difficult to justify why state responsibility should be distributed to them. Purely legal approaches to the issue are not likely to resolve the problem, and although the literature of moral collective responsibility suggests some bases for having citizens share the costs of state responsibility, none are completely satisfying. Concepts from complexity theory show why this is so. If the theory is correct, the state is neither a legal abstraction nor reducible to the individuals who purportedly comprise it. Instead, it is an emergent phenomenon that arises from complex interactions among individuals, formal and informal subgroups, and the conceptual tools and structures that individuals and subgroups use to comprehend and respond to their physical and social environments. The theory is consistent with a basic premise of international law that the state as such is an appropriate bearer of responsibility. However, because in a complex system there is no linear connection between the emergent phenomenon and its underlying constituents, this suggests that the divide between a state and its citizens in the distribution of state responsibility may never be bridged.
- Topic:
- International Law
35108. When Structures Become Shackles: Stagnation and Dynamics in International Lawmaking
- Author:
- Jan Wouters, Joost Pauwelyn, and Ramses A. Wessel
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Formal international law is stagnating in terms both of quantity and quality. It is increasingly superseded by 'informal international lawmaking' involving new actors, new processes, and new outputs, in fields ranging from finance and health to internet regulation and the environment. On many occasions, the traditional structures of formal lawmaking have become shackles. Drawing on a two-year research project involving over 40 scholars and 30 case studies, this article offers evidence in support of the stagnation hypothesis, evaluates the likely reasons for it in relation to a 'turn to informality', and weighs possible options in response. But informal structures can also become shackles and limit freedom. From practice, we deduce procedural meta-norms against which informal cooperation is increasingly checked ('thick stakeholder consensus'). Intriguingly, this benchmark may be normatively superior (rather than inferior) to the validation requirements of traditional international law ('thin state consent').
- Topic:
- Environment, Health, and International Law
35109. The Politics of Interest in International Law
- Author:
- Mónica García-Salmones Rovira
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The article examines the substance and form of 20th century positivist international law; in particular the way in which each determines the other. The text describes the turn to interests in international law, which evolved slowly in scope and depth. By examining Lassa Oppenheim's focus on 'common interests' that united states and Hans Kelsen's focus on the 'struggle of interests' that constituted politics, the article studies two phenomena produced by the foundational role taken by interests during the 20th century. First, this role contributed to putting an end to the moral discussion about the treatment of native populations. Secondly, it curbed debate about a common political project for a global order, thus creating conformity characterized by abuse of power – all in the name of the neutrality of positivist law. This article suggests that the work of these two leading theoreticians in the field has contributed to the shaping of the legal theory of mainstream positivist international law, and seeks to foreground discussions about the different theories on the role of law in politics. In this manner it aims to help reconceptualize law in such a way as to bring about a situation in which discussions of a common political project for the international arena are more central.
- Topic:
- International Law and Politics
- Political Geography:
- United States
35110. The Politics of Interest in International Law: A Reply to Mónica García-Salmones Rovira
- Author:
- Jörg Kammerhofer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- In this response to Mónica García-Salmones Rovira's article 'The Politics of Interest in International Law', the argument is developed that an interpretation of Kelsen's legal theory as founded on 'interests' or 'conflicts of interests' is not adequately supported by the primary materials, if read in their context. 'Interests' do not play a major role in Kelsen's writings, and where they are discussed, they do not form part of his legal theory, i.e., the Pure Theory of Law. This response argues that this 'context insensibility' in reading Kelsen may have its roots in the unwitting adoption of one over-arching method of scholarly cognition. It thereby implicitly discards one of the crucial axioms of Kelsen's theory of scholarship: the avoidance of a syncretism of methods through a consistent separation of scholarly enterprises and methods. Not to adopt such a separation is a legitimate stance; to foist the non-separation on an author whose theory hinges upon it is not.
- Topic:
- International Law
35111. The Politics of Interest in International Law: A Rejoinder to Jörg Kammerhofer
- Author:
- Mónica García-Salmones Rovira
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- I am very grateful to Jörg Kammerhofer for his engagement with my text. Not only does he know Kelsen's main writings on legal theory very well, but he is himself a Kelsenian scholar. One is led, therefore, to speculate on the extent to which his reply comes close to what Kelsen himself would have written in respect of my article, and more generally in respect of the book on which it is based.
- Topic:
- International Law
35112. Roaming Charges: Moments of Dignity: Keepers of the Sultan's Treasures, Brunei Regalia Museum
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- We deal in EJIL with the world we live in – often with its worst and most violent pathologies, often with its most promising signs of hope for a better world. But, inevitably, since our vehicle is scholarship, we reify this world. Roaming Charges is designed not just to offer a moment of aesthetic relief, but to remind us of the ultimate subject of our scholarly reflections: we alternate between photos of places – the world we live in – and photos of people – who we are, the human condition. We eschew the direct programmatic photograph: people shot up; the ravages of pollution and all other manner of photojournalism.
35113. F.F. Martens and His Time: When Russia Was an Integral Part of the European Tradition of International Law
- Author:
- Lauri Mälksoo
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This introductory article opens the symposium which examines the legacy of the Russian international lawyer Friedrich Fromhold von (or Fyodor Fyodorovich) Martens (1845–1909). In the first section, the article critically reviews previous research and literature on Martens and discusses the importance of the Martens diaries that are preserved in a Moscow archive. In the second section, the article offers an intellectual portrait of Martens and analyses the main elements in his international legal theory as expressed in his textbook. In particular, his claim that international law was applicable only between 'civilized states' is illuminated and discussed.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- Russia and Europe
35114. F.F. Martens – Man of the Enlightenment: Drawing Parallels between Martens' Times and Today's Problems
- Author:
- Rein Müllerson
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article concentrates on two controversial aspects of the writings of Friedrich Fromhold Martens – his treatment of the so-called mission civilisatrice of European nations and the potential clash of the two roles an international lawyer may have to perform: in the service of international law and representing national interests of his/her country or other clients. Both of these aspects in Martens' work have not lost their topicality; it is illuminating to draw parallels between his time and today's world.
- Topic:
- International Law
- Political Geography:
- Europe
35115. The Enactment of Irony: Reflections on the Origins of the Martens Clause
- Author:
- Rotem Giladi
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The Martens clause has made F. F. Martens one of the 'household names of our profession'. Since its first appearance in the preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention (II) on the Laws and Customs of War on Land, the clause has incessantly been puzzled over, historicized, celebrated, and re-enacted. Much of the extant discourse, however, is geared towards normative construction of the clause. This article, by contrast, seeks to depart from normative construction of the clause and draw attention, instead, to the discourse it has generated. To facilitate discursive exploration and demonstrate its pertinence, I offer a critical reading of the clause's origins as the enactment of an irony. Thus, the making of the clause saw words used to express something in the opposite of their literal meaning. In time, the clause itself came to represent that which is entirely the opposite of what it was first used for. These and other ironies underpin how the clause itself, its making, and Martens' role therein are interpreted, historicized, and celebrated today. They also pave the way for critical explorations of the clause's epistemic significance.
- Topic:
- War
35116. Friedrich F. Martens on 'The Office of Consul and Consular Jurisdiction in the East'
- Author:
- Andreas T. Müller
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Friedrich F. Martens is famous for the clause named after him and his Cours of 1882. Much less known is his doctoral thesis of 1873 on 'The Office of Consul and Consular Jurisdiction in the East'. Apart from dealing with consular rights and duties in the Oriental states in general, Martens' special interest is in a particular institution of consular law in the 'East', i.e., consular jurisdiction. By virtue of so-called capitulations entered into in favour of Western states from the 16th century on, nationals of the latter nations were exempted from the territorial jurisdiction of their Oriental host states. In lieu of it, Western consuls exercised judicial authority over their fellow countrymen. Martens' analysis of consular jurisdiction is deeply immersed in the 19th century dichotomy of civilized and non-civilized nations, with this institution, from his point of view, assuming a key role in managing the relations between the two. He is convinced that intercourse between the West and the East and consequently a rise in the level of civilization of the Oriental states is only possible by mediation of consular jurisdiction. Thus, studying Martens' doctoral thesis contributes both to a better balanced assessment of Martens as an international lawyer and reminds us how quickly humanitarian arguments and purported promotion of civilizational purposes can turn into paternalistic reasoning.
- Topic:
- Humanitarian Aid
35117. A Study of Lawyers Appearing before the International Court of Justice, 1999–2012
- Author:
- Shashank P. Kumar and Cecily Rose
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- This article provides empirical support for what might strike some as a truism: oral proceedings before the International Court of Justice (the Court) are dominated by male international law professors from developed states. In order to test this claim, our study examines the composition of legal teams appearing on behalf of states before the Court in contentious proceedings between 1999 and 2012. We have focused, in particular, on counsels' gender, nationality, the development status and geographical region of their country of citizenship, and their professional status (as members of law firms, barristers or sole practitioners, professors, or other). The results of our study raise questions about the evident gender imbalance among counsel who have appeared before the Court during the timeframe of this study, as well as the apparent preference that states have shown for 'repeat players' and professors of public international law. By presenting data on the composition of legal teams, and discussing possible explanations for the patterns that we have observed, this study aims to contribute to the development of a body of scholarship on international law as a profession.
- Topic:
- International Law
35118. The Judicialization of International Law: Reflections on the Empirical Turn
- Author:
- Gleider I. Hernández
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The proliferation of international courts and tribunals in the last two decades has been an important new development in international law, and the three books under review are at the vanguard in substantiating the claim that the judicialization of international law reflects its deepened legalization. All three have adopted ambitious empirical frameworks through which to assess the impact of international courts, and present valuable insights with respect to the phenomenon. Whilst all seek to make intelligible the growing relevance of the various international courts, their empirical methodology and mapping exercise reflects a faith that the legalization/judicialization of international law is a positive development, one that might nevertheless be contested. With the Oxford Handbook's mapping exercise, Karen Alter's 'altered politics' model of effectiveness, and Yuval Shany's 'goal-based' method for assessing effectiveness, the three books represent the forefront of scholarly efforts to study the practice of international courts. One should be careful, however: because the empirical exercise attempted in these three books goes beyond mere description into an attempt to model future outcomes, it has the drawback of privileging certain modes of cognizing the phenomenon of the proliferation of international courts. Although an important contribution, a solely empirical approach would create the impression of a purely linear progression in the judicialization of international law, one which might not be borne out in reality.
- Topic:
- International Law
35119. International Law for a Water-Scarce World. Fresh Water in International Law. The Right(s) to Water. The Multi-Level Governance of a Unique Human Right
- Author:
- Sara De Vido
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Water has been a challenging issue over the centuries. From questions of national boundaries and navigation, quite common in the past, to the development of a human right to water, this essential element for human life has always spurred debate among international lawyers, economists, political scientists, geographers, and anthropologists. The reason may be found in the scarcity of water, a phenomenon which affects both developed and developing countries. Much has been written on the topic, but the three books under review significantly contribute to a critical analysis of some pertinent legal issues related to water. The title of each monograph reflects the purpose of the respective study. Hence, International Law for a Water-Scarce World by Brown Weiss starts from the acknowledgement that 'the fresh water crisis is the new environmental crisis of the 21st century' (at 1) and provides an integrated analysis of water law, which considers climate implications, river basins, and the availability and quality of fresh water. Boisson De Chazournes' Fresh Water in International Law investigates the status of fresh water in international law. The choice of the titles of the chapters is particularly evocative. Thus, after a chapter on regulation of fresh water use, the book continues with chapters on the 'Economization' of the law applicable to fresh water, its 'Environmentalization', followed by its 'Humanization', and 'Institutionalization Trends in Fresh Water Governance', before focusing on dispute settlement mechanisms. The use of the ending '-zation' gives the immediate impression of the evolution of the law on fresh water resources, which now includes several separate but clearly interrelated aspects. The title of the third book, written by Thielbörger, deserves attention for two elements, the first being the letter 's' inside the parentheses and the second being the adjective 'unique' used for identifying the human right to water. The Right(s) to Water. The Multi-Level Governance of a Unique Human Right pursues a different purpose from the two other books under review which adopt a more comprehensive approach. Thielbörger's book (based on his doctoral dissertation) studies the human right to water from a comparative and international perspective, emphasizing the complexity of a right which is strictly linked to other rights but constitutes at the same time a right of its own.
- Topic:
- Development, Human Rights, and International Law
35120. Kate Miles. The Origins of International Investment Law: Empire, Environment, and the Safeguarding of Capital
- Author:
- David Schneiderman
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Mainstream investment law scholars have delivered their verdict on the relevance of the past: it is 'anachronistic and obsolete'. Historic controversies over the meaning of customary international law between capital-exporting and capital-importing states have been overtaken, it is said, by nearly 3,000 bilateral investment treaties. This looks mostly like a strategic denial – cabining investment law's past makes the present appear free of the dynamics of domination that characterized prior conflicts. That history, the mainstream maintains, bears no relationship to the meaning and content of contemporary commitments made by states acting in their sovereign capacity and in relative positions of equality.
- Topic:
- History
35121. Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet. What is a Fair International Society? International Law Between Development and Recognition
- Author:
- Ruti Teitel
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Does international law have an answer to the question: 'what is a fair international society'? In her insightful book, Emmanuelle Tourne-Jouannet interrogates in a systematic fashion diverse areas of international law that touch upon or address, directly or indirectly, fairness, equity, or redistribution: from the law of development to minority rights to international economic law. By taking positive law as the point of departure for an inquiry about global justice, Tourme- Jouannet departs, in a refreshing way, from attempts to extrapolate from mainstream legal theory an abstract conception of global justice. '[W]hat is to be addressed here are not contemporary theories of justice and the philosophical questions that the topic raises .... [I]t is the aim to address them here from a different angle: from within legal practice, as it were .... I have opted for an approach based on existing legal practice, with a view to conceptualizing and questioning it' (at 3). For Tourme-Jouannet, the question about the fairness of international legal practice leads to a number of other legal-historical questions regarding the contemporary evolution of international law. The project is 'simply to begin by identifying the principles and legal practices relating to development and recognition' ( ibid. ). In her view, adopting a historical perspective, these practices – notwithstanding their differences – reflect a joint concern with achieving global justice over the years.
- Topic:
- Economics and International Law
35122. Lawrence O. Gostin. Global Health Law
- Author:
- Stéphanie Dagron
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Lawrence O. Gostin's new book begins with the sentence '[t]his is a unique moment to offer a systematic account of global health law' and he is right. The book under review is published at a time when the most influential international institutions are emphasizing the necessity for multilateral cooperation in the field of public health. For example, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) addresses this point in its current deliberations on the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals Agenda. Contemporary globalization has irrevocably made borders porous to capital, services, goods, and persons. Global social, economic, and political changes, such as increasing industrialization, urbanization, environmental degradation, migration, drug trafficking, and the marketing strategies of transnational corporations (e.g., in the food, pharmaceutical, and tobacco industries) have a significant impact on health. This impact is transnational and intersectoral: global health hazards go beyond the control of individual nation states and extend beyond the restricted field of health care.
- Topic:
- Economics, Health, Migration, United Nations, Food, and Law
35123. Introduction to International Environmental Law
- Author:
- Birgit Lode
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- Already back in 1987 the Brundtland report by the World Commission on Environment and Development stressed that '[n]ational and international law is being rapidly outdistanced by the accelerating pace and expanding scale of impacts on the ecological basis of development'. Since then international environmental law regimes have multiplied and an up-to-date introduction to the constantly evolving field of international environmental law is very welcome, not least due to the lack of equally concise alternatives in the introductory literature. Aimed at filling this gap, Timo Koivurova with his Introduction to International Environmental Law chooses an approach well suited to the student readers he primarily intends to address. The book dispenses with footnotes, tables of treaties, and a comprehensive bibliography. Instead, a manageable number of endnotes accompany each chapter, preceded by a set of questions and research tasks, and followed by suggestions for further reading and websites addressing the respective topics. Thereby, the subject matter is presented in the most general fashion possible without making concessions to the scientific nature of the book, allowing '[i]nternational environmental law and politics [to] speak for themselves' (at xix). Moreover, in order to make the information provided easily accessible and comprehensible by a broad range of readers the book includes several boxes going into more detail on, e.g., specific cases, conventions, institutions, or environmental disasters. It illustrates topics and sometimes presents them from a different angle by adding photographs and figures, clarifying essentials as well as sparking the readers' imagination.
- Topic:
- Environment, Politics, and Law
35124. Corrigendum
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- There was an error in the title of this article. The correct title is: The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe – Standards and Impact. The title has been corrected in the online version of EJIL. The publishers would like to apologize for this error and for any confusion caused.
- Political Geography:
- Europe
35125. Vietnam
- Author:
- Keith Ekiss
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The airport shuttle driver arrives at dawn. When I complain in jest about the hour, he fires back a phrase, then translates: 'Vietnamese for Tough shit, baby.' We pick up a woman bound for France and he unloads, as if between men there was untold conflict. Her long blonde hair curls in tendrils toward her waist, she leans forward, a hand to his shoulder. Thirty years after Da Nang, he brought gifts to an orphanage, wooden toys, no guns, the children too young to have known our war. I put it, I tried to put it behind me. I watch him squeeze a thumb and finger to his temple: I pressed it all in here. When I was a boy, no one said a word about the war. For all I knew, the country didn't exist, a place as distant as Paris, the French model city for Saigon.
- Political Geography:
- Vietnam
35126. Egypt: Three Years after Tahrir Square
- Author:
- Andrew Thompson and Shreen Abou El-Naga
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Video
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation
- Abstract:
- In the final episode of Inside the Issues Season Four, Shreen Abou el-Naga joins host Andrew Thompson for a discussion on Egypt three years after Tahrir square. Has Egypt's revolution stalled? What role are the new intellectuals playing in shaping the country's future? Has the human rights situation, specifically for h, shifted? Tune in to access the full discussion and learn more about life in Egypt today.In the final episode of Inside the Issues Season Four, Shreen Abou el-Naga joins host Andrew Thompson for a discussion on Egypt three years after Tahrir square. Has Egypt's revolution stalled? What role are the new intellectuals playing in shaping the country's future? Has the human rights situation, specifically for women, shifted? Tune in to access the full discussion and learn more about life in Egypt today.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Law, Political Activism, Popular Revolt, and Reform
- Political Geography:
- Arabia and Egypt
35127. Keeping the Bombs in the Basement: U.S. Nonproliferation Policy toward Israel, South Africa, and Pakistan
- Author:
- Or Rabinowitz and Nicholas L. Miller
- Publication Date:
- 06-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Many accounts suggest that the United States did little to prevent Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa from developing nuclear weapons. These accounts are flawed, however. The United States did attempt to stop all three countries from acquiring the bomb and, when those efforts failed, to halt additional proliferation measures such as further testing and weaponization.
- Topic:
- Nuclear Weapons, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Military Strategy, Nonproliferation, and Denuclearization
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, United States, Israel, and South Africa
35128. Russia as Opportunist or Spoiler in the Middle East?
- Author:
- Pavel K. Baev
- Publication Date:
- 06-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The International Spectator
- Institution:
- Istituto Affari Internazionali
- Abstract:
- The severe and fast-evolving Ukraine crisis has required a great concentration of Russia’s political efforts and is having a massive impact on Russian policymaking, including in the Middle East. This region provides the best opportunity for Moscow to reassert its status as a key player in the global arena, and the deep fall of oil prices makes Russia particularly attentive to regional conflict developments. One of the main motivations for Russia is the pronounced desire to demonstrate its capacity to thwart US policy, but another is to prove its value to China as a strategic partner. Russia’s reach remains limited but it will continue to look for opportunities to make a difference.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Conflict, and Syrian War
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, Middle East, Syria, and United States of America
35129. Fostering Pro-social Behaviour Online: „Nudges‟ in the Right Direction
- Author:
- Nadica Pavlovska
- Publication Date:
- 06-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- The internet penetration and the consequent creation of hyper-connected reality has exposed the Singaporean population to much more diversity of thoughts and influences. In this environment, efforts to maintain social cohesion and multicultural tolerance among the population is now even more challenging. In light of this, this paper attempts to explore the means available to maintain pro-social behaviour and build a culture of respect online. By assessing the current measures undertaken in Singapore, this paper argues that the majority of the strategies are “mind changing” such as education and awareness raising campaigns. However, by taking into account the specificity of the internet interaction, it is suggested that these strategies could be further enhanced by adopting a “context changing” approach in the online interaction by using specific behaviour influencers such as social norms, priming and messenger approach.
- Topic:
- Internet, Digital Culture, and Social Cohesion
- Political Geography:
- Asia and Singapore
35130. Soccer: Moulding the Middle East and North Africa
- Author:
- James M Dorsey
- Publication Date:
- 02-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- Nowhere in the world has sports in general and soccer in particular played such a key role in the development of a region than in the Middle East and North Africa. Yet, the nexus of sports, politics and society is one area that Middle East studies with few exceptions have ignored. Similarly, sports studies have focused on all parts of the world with one exception: the Middle East and North Africa. Nonetheless, sports and particularly soccer has been in various parts of the Middle East key to nation formation, nation building, regime formation, regime survival and the struggles for human, gender and labour rights. This working paper is an attempt to fill a gap in the literature and contribute to the development of theory on the role of sports in the Middle East and North Africa.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Nationalism, Labor Issues, Sports, and State Building
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Middle East, and North Africa
35131. Brazil-China Relations
- Author:
- Loro Horta
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- Chinese leaders consider relations with Brazil to be of utmost importance. Brazil‘s vast reserves of natural resources, its massive agricultural sector and market potential for Chinese exports make Brazil one of China‘s top foreign policy priorities. Within the past decade, Sino-Brazilian ties have soared with trade reaching US$22 billion in 2007 and Brazil becoming China‘s main South American trading partner. In early 2009, China even surpassed the United States as Brazil's largest trading partner with two-way trade reaching a staggering US$43 billion. Both countries have cooperated in various sensitive technology sectors such as satellite and military technologies, and are expanding these exchanges. Today, Brazil accounts for 40 per cent of China‘s total agricultural exports and is therefore extremely important for food security of the Asian giant as well. Many observers have argued that China‘s growing relations with Brazil is likely to lead to an alliance between the so-called "third world giants" to balance American and Western hegemony. While there are indeed several complementarities between the two emerging economies and while both countries share some common political beliefs regarding the international system, many issues of contention will remain and perhaps be aggravated as Sino-Brazilian ties develop. Alliances have very different meanings in the post-Cold War context, and they no longer imply rigid military and economic blocks confronting one another. The concept of ―strategic partnership‖ is a better framework to look into new power relations in the 21st century. Despite some tensions in Sino-Brazilian relations, both nations can be expected to grow closer to one another. The positive aspects of their relationship far outweigh the problems and tensions inherent in most relations among major powers. The Sino-Brazilian strategic partnership is likely to produce significant changes in the balance of power in the Americas. China's growing ties to Brazil, however, will not necessarily lead to a dramatic loss of influence for the United States. While China has gained an impressive economic presence in Brazil — and in the region — economic influence does not always translate into political and strategic dominance. The economic power of the United States remains the dominant force and its century old relationship with Brazil continues to have a strong appeal among the Brazilians. Arguably, China's growing influence in the Americas, to an extent, is a result of previous U.S. administrations' neglect of the region's needs and it remains to be seen what effect would a more attentive U.S. administration will have in facing China's growing influence in Latin America.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Asia, Brazil, and South America
35132. China-Myanmar Relations Since Naypyidaw’s Political Transition: How Beijing can Balance Short-term Interests and Long-term Values
- Author:
- Chenyang Li and James Char
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- In discussions on Myanmar's political reforms since the installation of a civilianised military regime in 2011, most analysts have focused on the bedevilment of bilateral ties between Beijing and Naypyidaw. To be sure, China has since become more attuned to the concerns of non-state actors with the opening up of Myanmar's political space as well as recalibrated its strategies in the face of renewed diplomatic competition from other countries in vying for the affections of the Burmese leadership. In acknowledging the corrections China‘s Myanmar policy has undergone, this article argues that Beijing‘s factoring in of Burmese national interests and development needs can help enhance its prospects. While a return to the previous robust bilateral relationship may appear inconceivable in the near future, this article concludes that there is still hope for Beijing in overcoming the challenges posed by Naypyidaw's political transition should it be able to keep up with the latter's evolution over the longer term.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Development, Diplomacy, and Non State Actors
- Political Geography:
- China, Asia, and Myanmar
35133. Economic Policy Reforms in South Asia: An Overview and the Remaining Agenda
- Author:
- Pradumna B. Rana and Wai-Mun Chia
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- In the past few years, the pace of economic growth in South Asia has slowed considerably for two reasons: unfavourable global economic environment and the slowing pace of economic reforms that once were the key drivers of the region’s dynamic economic performance and resilience. This paper focuses on the latter and following Rana (2011) and Rana and Hamid (1995), it argues that South Asian countries have not sequenced their reforms properly. The first round of reforms in South Asia that began in the 1980s and the early 1990s focused on macroeconomic reforms — monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate management, as well as reducing rigid government controls — which led to private sector driven economic growth. These should have been followed by the more microeconomic reforms — sectoral and the so-called “second generation” reforms to strengthen governance and institutions — to sustain the higher growth levels. But they were not and reforms ran out of steam because of, among others, lack of law and order, and corruption in the public sector. This paper finds a significant “governance gap” in South Asia that refers to how South Asia lags behind East Asia in terms of various governance indicators and how within South Asia some countries are ahead of others. The paper argues that in order to revive economic growth, South Asian countries must implement microeconomic reforms: it identifies the remaining policy agenda for each South Asian country. However, implementation of microeconomic reforms poses a difficult challenge as they require a wider consensus and political support and have a longer term focus. The recent election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India with a strong mandate for economic reform provides an environment of “cautious optimism” for all of South Asia.
- Topic:
- Governance, Reform, Global Political Economy, and Economic Development
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
35134. Kashmir and the India-Pakistan Composite Dialogue Process
- Author:
- Sumona Dasgupta
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper explores how the contentious issue of Kashmir has been framed in the India- Pakistan composite dialogue which aims at building a peace process between the two nuclear armed countries locked in an adversarial relationship for over six decades. Through an item by item analysis of the eight heads of the composite dialogue, it demonstrates that barring one item, the script of Kashmir — its land, resources, livelihoods and security — runs through all of them in some form or another. Yet this top- down composite dialogue conducted by the political leadership of India and Pakistan has yielded no tangible results in resolving any of the issues around Kashmir. It is time for a new imaginative peace-building paradigm to be given a chance where the people of Kashmir, in all their diversity, are recognised as legitimate stakeholders in an inclusive dialogic process. The paper suggests that intra-Kashmir people-to-people dialogues, both within Indian-administered Kashmir and between Indian and Pakistan administered Kashmir, be allowed to acquire a meaning and momentum of their own and advocates consultative mechanisms to allow community voices and narratives to percolate into and inform the official Indo-Pakistan composite dialogue. A more people centric peace process in Kashmir is an idea whose time has come.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Conflict, and Peace
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, India, Asia, and Kashmir
35135. Soccer vs. Jihad: A Draw
- Author:
- James M Dorsey
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- There is much that militant Islamists and jihadists agree on, but when it comes to sports in general and soccer in particular sharp divisions emerge. Men like the late Osama bin Laden, Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah stand on one side of the ideological and theological divide opposite groups like the Taliban, Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, Boko Haram, and the jihadists who took control of northern Mali in 2012. The Islamic State, the jihadist group that controls swaths of Syria and Iraq, belongs ideologically and theologically to the camp that views soccer as an infidel invention designed to distract the faithful from their religious obligations but opportunistically employs football in its sophisticated public relations and public diplomacy endeavour. Bin Laden, Haniyeh and Nasrallah employ soccer as a recruitment and bonding tool based on the belief of Salafi and mainstream Islamic scholars who argue that Prophet Muhammad advocated physical exercise to maintain a healthy body. However, the more militant students of Islam seek to re- write the rules of the game to Islamicise it, if not outright ban the sport. The practicality and usefulness of soccer is evident in the fact that perpetrators of attacks, like those by Hamas on civilian targets in Israel in 2003 and the 2004 Madrid train bombings, bonded by playing soccer together.
- Topic:
- Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Sports, Islamic State, and Militant Islam
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Middle East, and Syria
35136. Indonesia’s Defence Diplomacy: Harnessing the Hedging Strategy against Regional Uncertainties
- Author:
- Iis Gindarsah
- Publication Date:
- 06-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- Indonesia has been increasingly susceptible to recent geopolitical developments. Along with the rapid pace of regional arms modernisation and unresolved territorial disputes, it begins to ponder the impact of emerging great power rivalry to the country’s strategic interests. However, rather than pursuing a robust military build-up, Indonesian policymakers asserts that diplomacy is the country’s first line of defence. This paper argues that Indonesia’s defence diplomacy serves two agenda of hedging strategy — strategic engagement and military modernisation. This way, Indonesian defence and security officials seek to moderate the impact of geopolitical changes whilst maintaining the country’s defensive ability against regional uncertainties.
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, and Military Strategy
- Political Geography:
- Indonesia and Asia
35137. In Defence of Freedom of Speech and against the Publication of Certain Cartoons
- Author:
- Paul Hedges
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper explores the concept of freedom of speech, as it relates to religion, focusing on recent European examples of tensions that surface secular mores and Islamic sensibilities, primarily the Charlie Hebdo incident. This paper argues that while offence to others does not breech free speech, when considering cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, we cannot ignore the geopolitical context. Such images may perpetuate stereotypes and be perceived as part of a neo-colonial project to denigrate minorities and the Muslim world. In particular, Islamophobia and the post-colonial context provide a context wherein the Islamic “Other” within Western societies is marginalised and often experiences oppression. Therefore, what appears to be legitimate freedom of speech may actually be a discourse of suppression. The paper also considers possible objections around individual autonomy and the power of religion, and suggests principles when considering the limits of freedom of speech.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Religion, and Islamophobia
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35138. To Shoot or not to Shoot? Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern Militaries Respond Differently
- Author:
- James M Dorsey and Teresita Cruz-del Rosario
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
- Abstract:
- An analysis of the Middle Eastern and North African militaries has produced a laundry list of literature, much of which was either valid for a specific post-World War II period or highlighted one of more aspects of military interest in the status quo or attitudes towards political change. Leaving aside the geopolitical differences between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, a comparison of the transition in both regions brings into focus the building blocks that are needed for an armed force to embrace change. Southeast Asian nations succeeded whereas the countries in Middle East and North Africa, with the exception of Tunisia, have failed for several reasons.
- Topic:
- Politics, Military Strategy, Military Affairs, and Transition
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Asia
35139. The good, the better and the best: How the Community Work Programme can reach its full potential as an instrument of community development in South Africa
- Author:
- Community Work Programme (CWP)
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
- Abstract:
- The CWP can make a major contribution to community development. Both the way the CWP is implemented at each site and the work it does are important in shaping the contribution the CWP makes to the development of the community.
- Topic:
- Development, Violence, Reconciliation, and Community
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa
35140. Working for Safety: The Community Work Programme as a tool for preventing violence and building safer communities
- Author:
- Community Work Programme (CWP)
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
- Abstract:
- The Community Work Programme (CWP) provides two days of work per week (up to 100 days per year) to unemployed and underemployed people. During the year April 2014 to March 2015 there were 202 599 participants in the CWP at 186 CWP sites across South Africa.
- Topic:
- Violence, Work Culture, Reconciliation, and Community
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa
35141. Whose Side Are You Om? Identifying The Distributive Preferences of Local Politicians in India
- Author:
- Mark Schneider and Neelanjan Sircar
- Publication Date:
- 08-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for the Advanced Study of India
- Abstract:
- The literature on decentralized public programs suggests that errors in the targeting of anti-poverty programs are rooted in the capture of these programs by local elites or local politicians. Consistent with the literature on moral economy in political science and experimental economics, we argue that voters in contexts of rural poverty prefer local leaders who target subsistence benefits to the poor. In a high- information village context, where voters and leaders know each other, we argue that local elections lead to the selection of local leaders with pro-poor preferences over the distribution of these benefits. We show this with a novel theory of local politicians’ social preferences. We test our theory with unique data from a behavioral measure, conducted in the context of a lottery with a modest cash prize in rural India, that captures a scenario in which local leaders have full discretion and anonymity over allocation among members of their rural communities. We analyze our data using a novel estimation strategy that takes the characteristics of the pool of potential beneficiaries into account in decisions over allocation under a budget constraint. We find that local leaders have strong preferences for targeting the poor, and particularly those they believe supported them politically in the past. This article suggests that free and fair elections at the local level can powerfully encourage pro-poor targeting even in contexts of weak institutions and pervasive poverty. It also makes a fundamental contribution to research on distributive politics by challenging research in this area to demonstrate the effect of electoral strategies and other distortions on allocation relative to local leaders’ baseline distributive preferences.
- Topic:
- Elections, Domestic Politics, Rural, Local, and Decentralization
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
35142. A Tale of Two Villages: Kinship Netwoks and Political Preference Change in Rural India
- Author:
- Neelanjan Sircar
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for the Advanced Study of India
- Abstract:
- This paper develops a theory on how voters form and change political preferences in democratic de- veloping world contexts. In the developing world, where state institutions are often weak, voters tend to be more focused on the competence and capacity of parties and candidates to deliver benefits. Such information may be difficult to ascertain, so voters must glean information from how candidates con- duct themselves during the electoral campaign. Voters use kinship networks to develop more accurate preferences by collectively reasoning through newly available information on candidates. In order to demonstrate these claims, this study analyzes data collected on political preferences and kinship net- works in two villages just before and after the campaign period during the 2011 Assembly election in the Indian state of West Bengal. The paper finds very strong kinship network effects on changes in issue preferences and vote choice over the course of the campaign and explains the results through qualitative work and a series of network autoregressive statistical models. In sum, this paper demonstrates how vot- ers develop independent preferences and implement political change, even in low information contexts with weak human capital.
- Topic:
- Elections, Democracy, and Networks
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, Asia, and West Bengal
35143. Reclaiming the Grassland for the Cheetah: Science and Nature Conservation in India
- Author:
- Ghazala Shahabuddin
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for the Advanced Study of India
- Abstract:
- The role of scientists in influencing the aims and priorities of biological conservation in developing countries has been a topic of debate and needs elucidation. The Asiatic cheetah reintroduction plan in India sparked much discussion on the pros and cons of attempting to revive the population of a large carnivore that had been missing from the landscape for over half a century. This paper traces the history of cheetah reintroduction with the aim of exploring the relationships amongst the constituencies of scientists, politicians, local communities and the bureaucracy. This paper suggests that the decision to reintroduce the Asiatic cheetah in India was motivated by political symbolism and had little grounding in scientific rigour. Science was used as a legitimizing tool for a politically influenced conservation goal which had little space for socio-economic constraints or academic rigour. While there are many strands of wildlife conservation emerging in India, the dominant paradigm upheld by biologists continues to be negligent of both scientific and social concerns.
- Topic:
- Nationalism, Science and Technology, Conservation, and Nature
- Political Geography:
- South Asia, India, and Asia
35144. An Awkward Tango: Pairing Traditional Military Planning to Design and Why It Currently Fails to Work
- Author:
- Ben Zweibelson
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Over the past decade, traditional military planning methodology and doctrine has gained an unlikely dance partner-the ambiguous, conceptual, and controversial process called ‘design.’ Although I will expand in this article on what exactly traditional military planning’ constitutes as a methodology, readers familiar with the debate over conceptual and detailed planning will recognize traditional military planning as the linear, analytic process grounded in metrics, categories, and objective scientific tenets. Many call this ‘detailed planning’ to refer synonymously to traditional military problem-solving, reflecting a military institutional practice of developing specific, sequential, and highly scientific-based plans that are quantifiable (analytical, objective) according to an accepted language, format, and professional education.4Unlike detailed planning, design as an emerging practice evokes eclectic combinations of philosophy, social sciences, complexity theory, and often improvised, unscripted approaches in a tailored or “one of a kind” practice. Ultimately, design becomes something beyond military planning entirely, thus we should avoid an “either or” sort of debate with design and detailed planning. Although this article employs the metaphor of awkward dancing partners, the metaphor is incomplete in that design may “dance” with detailed planning, while also able to depart the dance floor and do things that detailed planning is simply incapable of. However, for military professionals facing complex problems, we might continue the awkward tango metaphor for this article in that a military might employ both design and detailed planning in many conflict environments.Both design and detailed planning are elements of sensemaking, where for military applications we derive the notion of ‘planning’ and ‘knowing’ in a broad sense as an integral part of comprehending reality. Planning is subordinate to ‘knowing’ in that the detailed blueprints for constructing a tank are subordinate to the conceptual design of“how does one construct an armored vehicle to dominate specific terrain”? Planning is subordinate to design, with detailed planning further subordinate to various types of planning, with ill-structured conflict environments requiring militaries to whirl various dancing partners of design and planning across confusing and dynamic dance floors. Yet as our associated western military doctrine, military education, and practice in conflict environments demonstrates repeatedly, we are unable to get these dance partners to work together as a team, or move to the music for purposes of effectively creating and directing useful action for a military organization.5Institutionally and as a practicing community of professionals, the Western military has little trouble agreeing upon the general principles of traditional planning.6Yet we collectively remain fiercely divided, confused, and often resistant to design in any form, whether a rival methodology, complimentary, or even a subset of traditional planning.7‘Military Design’ comes in as many shades and patterns as service camouflage patterns now, and just as uniform differences symbolize organizational relevance and identity, so do the various service-centric design versions available for sensemaking and subsequent planning applications. Design has become so much of a stumbling block that the U.S. Army has devoted multiple research projects on design integration using the U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences, and in 2011 revised Army design doctrine with a name change and “rebranding” complete with academic realignments.8While the U.S. Army has cycled through several incarnations of design in the past decade, American Joint doctrine (which strongly influences other western military doctrines) has separated design from ‘operational design’ while casting both within traditional planning, resulting in a rather befuddled operational force. The U.S. military Joint Staff’s Planner’s Handbook for Operational Design from 2011 offers the following explanation: In general, the terms [design and operational design] have been related but not identical. The focus of discussion and writing on design during the past three years has been on the critical and creative thinking and learning required to understand complex operational environments and ill-defined problems facing the commander. Such understanding should facilitate early development of a broad operational approach that can guide the more detailed planning process. Operational design is a construct that joint doctrine has used since 2002 to encompass various elements of operational design (previously called facets of operational art) that planners have applied to develop a framework for a campaign or major operation... In essence, the above explanation conveys that joint doctrine’s operational design has embraced and subsumed design’s philosophy and general methodology.” 9 Thus, United States military organizations at the Joint level apply some aspects of the service-specific “Army Design Methodology” into joint doctrine where “operational design” functions more as a reverse-engineering planning project for campaign construction.10 This confuses military professionals because our organizations are not only mixing terms and concepts, but engaging far too much in methodological discussions without getting above it all and into the challenging abstract levels this article will offer. Although “design” is intended in the various U.S. Army doctrinal incarnations to be an iterative and adaptive sensemaking process for focusing critical and creative thinking on complex military problems, the American Army struggles to make sense of why military organizations have so many problems grasping what design is, and how it integrates into traditional military decision making. 11 With all of these different interpretations of how to make sense of complex military situations with ‘design’, is it any wonder why our militaries remains unable, or perhaps at a deeper institutional level, unwilling to integrate design effectively with traditional planning? We need to explore why traditional military planning and design theory remain awkward dance partners, and where we might try to nudge the larger Western military institution towards in the future. The difference goes beyond superficial arguments on language, doctrine, or conflict environments- it has to do with how the military prefers to make sense of the world beyond methodologies entirely.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy and Military Affairs
- Political Geography:
- United States
35145. Strategic Bombing if Possible, but Possibly not Strategic Bombing: an examination of ends, ways, and means and the use of strategic airpower during the Great War
- Author:
- Dr. Randall Wakelam
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- This paper is an offshoot of research conducted in preparation for the University of Calgary History conference of 2014 focussing on new perspectives of the Great War. My primary intent in that research was to explore the notion that air services were, using the recent educational concept of the Learning Organization, in fact precursors of this concept within a military context. One of the conclusions I came to is that this learning was not just happening within the air services but took place even at the national, or grand strategic, level where decisions had to be made both about how to use this new means of warfare and about the allocation of resources while continuing to support the needs of the army and navy. The former had to do with strategic bombing of enemy targets and the balance of this paper looks at how the concepts and practice of strategic bombing evolved in France, Germany and Britain.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, World War I, and Air Force
- Political Geography:
- Britain, Europe, France, and Germany
35146. A Tran-Atlantic Condominium of Democratic Power: the grand design for a post-war order at the heart of French policy at the Paris Peace Conference
- Author:
- Peter Jackson
- Publication Date:
- 07-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- France’s policy at the Paris Peace Conference has long been characterised as a bid to destroy German power and to secure a dominant position in the post-1918 European political order. The strategy and tactics of French premier Georges Clemenceau are nearly always contrasted with those of American president Woodrow Wilson. Clemenceau is represented as an arch cynic and committed practitioner of Realpolitik while Wilson is depicted as an idealist proponent of a new approach to international politics. The earliest, and one of the most extreme, articulation of this view was advanced by John Maynard Keynes in his Economic Consequences of the Peace. In what remains the most influential book ever written about the peace conference, Keynes characterised Clemenceau as a French Bismarck and the chief advocate of a ‘Carthaginian peace’.1 This judgement has reverberated through the historiography of the European international politics ever since.2 This general picture misses important dimensions to French planning and thus to the possibilities for peace in 1919. The evidence reveals that the peace programme of the Clemenceau government was much more open-ended and innovative than is generally recognised. French negotiators did propose a highly traditional project to overthrow the European balance of power by detaching the Left Bank of the Rhine from Germany and placing this region under permanent occupation. But there were other currents in French planning and policy that have been neglected. The French peace programme, as it emerged in February-March 1919, was a complex combination of power political calculation and an ideological commitment to a democratic peace based on new principles of international politics. Alongside the aim of territorial adjustment and a weakening of German power was a thoroughly trans-Atlantic conception of a democratic post-war order that allowed for the possibility of political and economic co- operation with a reformed and democratic Germany. The flexible and fundamentally multilateral character of this ‘larger strategic design’ overlapped with prevailing internationalist visions of peace and security in ways that have been missed by most scholars. French policy was much more ambiguous than Clemenceau was later willing to admit. Along with his chief lieutenant André Tardieu, he would spend much of the 1920s denouncing the failure of successive governments to impose the letter of the Versailles Treaty.4 But this post-war posturing has done much to obscure the complex character of his government’s peace programme.
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, International Cooperation, World War I, and Transatlantic Relations
- Political Geography:
- United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany
35147. Revolution, Civil War, and the 'Long' First World War in Russia
- Author:
- Evan Mawdsley
- Publication Date:
- 07-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- This essay has two related themes. The first is the causal link between the First World War and the Russian Revolution. The second is the periodization of Russia’s crisis; in particular the essay examines the ‘continuum’ between the First World War, the 1917 Revolution, and the Civil War of 1917-20 which formed, for Russia at least, a ‘long’ First World War. The link between war and revolution is important, especially as Imperial Russia was the only major participant in the Great War to fall victim to radical political overturn during the conflict, and the only one which continued to fight in 1917 after a drastic change of government. One of the most famous documents relating to the war-revolution link was a memorandum written by P. I. Durnovo to Emperor Nicholas II in February 1914, six months before the outbreak of the Great War. Durnovo had been Minister of the Interior during the 1905 Revolution; following his ministerial appointment he was one of the leaders of the State Council. The 1914 memorandum warned about the extreme danger of becoming involved in a war with Germany. [I]n the event of defeat, the possibility of which in a struggle with a foe like Germany cannot be overlooked, social revolution in its most extreme form is inevitable .... [I]t will start with the blaming of the government for all disasters. In the legislative institutions a bitter campaign against [the government] will begin, followed by revolutionary manifestations throughout the country, with socialist slogans, capable of arousing and rallying the masses, beginning with the complete division of the land and succeeded by a division of all valuables and property. The defeated army, having lost its most dependable men, and carried away by the tide of primitive peasant desire for land, will find itself too demoralized to serve as a bulwark of law and order. The legislative institutions and the opposition parties of the intelligentsia, lacking real authority in the eyes of the people, will be powerless of stem the popular tide, aroused in fact by themselves, and Russia will be flung into hopeless anarchy, the end-result of which cannot be foreseen.1 Durnovo died in 1915 and did not live to see how closely his fears would correspond to reality. However, since his Memorandum was published by the Soviet historians in 1922 it has been noted for its predictive quality; a recent Russian biography was published with the title ‘Russian Nostradamus’.2 Meanwhile, the notion of continuum has recently become an important theme in the study of early twentieth-century Russia, as the centenary of those events is reached. A major international research project, ‘Russia's Great War & Revolution’, is currently under development; it aims to ‘fundamentally transform understanding of Russia's “continuum of crisis” during the years 1914-1922’. The key phrase comes from the subtitle (Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921) of a 2002 book by Peter Holquist’s on the Don region.3 To make more sense of both the link between war and revolution and the continuum, the period 1914-1920 can be divided into four periods - 1914-1917, 1917, 1917-18, and 1918-20.
- Topic:
- Communism, World War I, Revolution, and Russian Revolution
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Eastern Europe
35148. When the generation gap collides with military structure: The case of the Norwegian cyber officers
- Author:
- Hanne Eggen Roislien
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- As the military integrates cyber into its structures, gradually more nations are recruiting and educating personnel to serve as "cyber officers". Tech-savvy men and women from ‘Generation Y’ grew up in the post-modern era, recognized not only by its individualism and erosion of overarching, coherent maxims, but also by the fact that technology is taken for granted. Thus, in the situation of the cyber officer a particular generation gap occurs, one in which the characteristics of postmodernity, military command structures and the inter-disciplinarity of cyber pull in conflicting directions. This friction creates a peculiar situation as technology and cyber contribute to sharpen the generation gap that necessarily exists between the young generation of cyber officers, and their superiors in the military. I explore this quandary through an examination of cyber officers’ testimonies. In particular, I focus on the cyber officers’ conceptualization of “cyber” and how this resonates with that of their superiors’. The data is ethnographic, based on interviews with cyber officer students at the Norwegian Defence Cyber Academy.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, Military Strategy, and Cybersecurity
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Norway, Northern Europe, and Scandinavia
35149. Maritime Non-state Actors: A Challenge for the Royal Canadian Navy?
- Author:
- David Rudd
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
- Institution:
- Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
- Abstract:
- Global security and prosperity depends in part on good order at sea, with its attendant flow of licit maritime commerce. While challenges to that order have existed since the earliest sea-farers, new players have emerged in recent decades that inhibit the ability of nation-states to regulate domestic and international maritime activity. This paper is intended to provide a brief exploration of the nature of maritime non-state actors (MNSAs) and the challenge they pose to national and international maritime security. It will examine the types and motivations of MNSAs and identify some of the ways in which a navy may interact with them. In doing so it will help to shape decision-making on how allied navies in general and the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in particular might theoretically align their capability-development efforts with these trends. As the paper is intended to be an overview of a complex and evolving phenomenon, it proceeds from the premise that the strategic/policy, doctrinal, and tactical questions raised herein will require more study.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, Non State Actors, Navy, and Maritime
- Political Geography:
- Canada and North America
35150. Journal of Public and International Affairs 2015
- Author:
- Joanna Hecht, Sam duPont, Cynthia Barmore, Natasha Geber, Abby McCartney, Emily A. Wiseman, Jordan Dantas, Stephanie Leutert, and Lauren Dunn
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Journal of Public and International Affairs (JPIA)
- Institution:
- School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
- Abstract:
- Cynthia Barmore builds on primary survey research conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina to offer new explanations of the constraints placed on farmers by an unreformed land system. Natasha Geber addresses an underexplored policy area, looking at Russia’s geopolitical ambitions in the Arctic and offering a perspective on the chances of international cooperation on Arctic issues. Abby McCartney pulls together two seemingly disparate policies, seeing an opportunity for New Jersey to expand its successful drug court program using provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Emily Wiseman looks at how women and girls still tend to be excluded from post-disaster relief efforts, even though almost all implementers understand that this exclusion exacerbates gender inequality and retards reconstruction. Jordan Dantas analyzes the drop in piracy off the Somali coast, and finds private sector success where military solutions failed. Stephanie Leutert offers a clear-eyed perspective on the divergent narratives about the Obama Administration’s deportation policies, and analyzes how those policies have impacted immigrant communities. Lauren Dunn looks at two programs for using mobile phones to provide basic banking services—a success and a failure—and offers lessons for how the regulatory environment and existing institutions must shape program design.
- Topic:
- Security, Gender Issues, Government, Immigration, Piracy, Women, Conflict, Rural, Drugs, Land Rights, Barack Obama, and Medicaid
- Political Geography:
- Russia, India, Haiti, North America, Somalia, Arctic, United States of America, and Bosnia and Herzegovina
35151. Russian Foreign Policy under Dmitry Medvedev’s Presidency (2008-2012)
- Author:
- Richard Rousseau
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
- Abstract:
- Following the inauguration of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in May 2008, the Russian political scene was characterized by a new structure: the country was governed by a bicephalous system (which reflected the two-headed eagle of the national flag). Medvedev became President and Vladimir Putin assumed the position of Prime Minister. In this ostensibly tandem structure, the Chief Executive was subordinated to the President as was the case even before Russia first emerged as an independent country in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Such a dual power sharing worked quite well during Medvedev’s term and with no serious fissures that could bring about competing circles of power around each of the heads of state. This was true even though the personalities of the two leaders were very different. Their priorities, however, seemed different, at least formally. During his presidency (2000-2008), Putin made every effort to recover Russia’s super power status and international respect. He did not hesitate to use the privileged position of Russia – main energy supplier to Europe, a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations, a continuing influence over the post-Soviet space – to achieve his ambitious goal. For his part, Medvedev preferred to use foreign policy as an instrument to advance the process of economic modernization, while keeping Russian national interests in mind. When compared to Russia’s main partners and competitors, Medvedev was very much aware of the systemic disadvantages his country faced. These disadvantages, according to him, were factors that considerably weakened Russia as a major world power and economic player. The foundation of Putin’s domestic and foreign policy was the concept of “sovereign democracy,” which argues that Russia must follow its own democratization process. There was no need to emulate and copy Western models. In this view, if Russia’s political system had serious flaws, the same could be said of the political systems of Western countries. The West was no longer seen as being in a position to give lessons to Russia. Consequently, Russian foreign policy at the time gradually abandoned or even opposed some of the positions taken by Western countries. Such a tendency began with Putin’s speech at the annual Wehrkunde conference held in Munich in January 2007. Within a year serious tensions arose between Russia and their Western allies, for instance with the August 2008 armed conflict between Georgia and Russia. The origin of this conflict was the longstanding secession attempts by South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two territories recognized as being part of Georgia. Especially glaring were Russia’s disagreements and confrontations with the U.S. over such issues as NATO expansion, European-based missile defense systems and U.S. attempts to expand its influence into what Russia considers its “near abroad”, the post-Soviet space. Under Putin, Russia once again seemed to be a rival of the West, not merely on an ideological basis as during the Cold War, but because of its own strong nationalistic tendencies.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, United Nations, and Military Strategy
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Soviet Union
35152. Dysfunctional Institutions, Social Trust, and Governance in Areas of Limited Statehood
- Author:
- Thomas Risse and Tanja A. Börzel
- Publication Date:
- 07-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
- Abstract:
- Areas of limited statehood where the state is absent or dysfunctional are rarely ungoverned or ungovernable spaces. The provision of rules and regulations as well as of public goods and services – governance – does not necessarily depend on the existence of functioning state institutions. How can this be explained? This article makes two claims. First, we identify functional equivalents to state institutions that fail to govern hierarchically. Second, we focus on informal institutions based on social trust that are endogenous to areas of limited statehood. Personalized social trust among community members enables actors to overcome collective action problems, enhancing the legitimacy of governance actors. The main challenge in areas of limited statehood, which are often characterized by social heterogeneity and deep social and cultural cleavages (particularly in post-conflict societies), is to move from personalized to generalized trust in “imagined communities” despite dysfunctional state institutions. We argue that generalized trust in areas of limited statehood crucially depends on inclusive social identities as an enabling condition for effective and legitimate governance.
- Topic:
- Governance, Community, Statehood, and Social Identities
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35153. Meta-Governance of Partnerships for Sustainable Development - Actors’ Perspectives on How the UN Could Improve Partnerships’ Governance Services in Areas of Limited Statehood
- Author:
- Marianne Beisheim and Nils Simon
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 700
- Abstract:
- In the context of negotiations on the Post-2015 or 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the process of formulating Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations (UN) (again) assigns an important role to multi-stakeholder partnerships. But how do actors view these partnerships more than ten years after the UN’s engagement with them? Our previous research found that transnational multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development are neither as successful as their proponents claim nor as ineffective as their critics argue (Beisheim/Liese 2014). In light of these findings, we ask whether relevant actors argue that lessons learned with regard to partnerships’ success conditions should be translated into rules and standards that guide the operations of existing and the development of new partnerships. This kind of meta-governance of partnerships could be exerted by state or non-state actors at the national or international level. Moreover, we distinguish between two broad functions of meta-governance: enabling and ensuring. In this paper, we present first insights into actors’ views on the meta-governance of partnerships. We focus on the actors in the UN-context, where reforms of the framework for partnerships are under debate.
- Topic:
- United Nations, Governance, Reform, and Sustainable Development Goals
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35154. IN3 - Incubating a New Spain through the Promotion of Entrepreneurship
- Author:
- James Costos
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Ambassadors Review
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- Helping entrepreneurs grow their businesses and achieve their full potential is in the interest of anyone who wants to foster prosperity worldwide—that’s why it’s an Obama administration priority. Growth anywhere does some good everywhere, and the fact is that entrepreneurs create jobs and drive economic growth both at home and abroad. In the United States, 40 percent of our $17 trillion economy is generated by companies that did not even exist 20 years ago. Two-thirds of our 65 months of consecutive job growth is driven by small businesses. The owners of those businesses—28 million and growing—employ over half of America’s workforce. As our missions work to expand the global economic recovery, one of the most effective tools we have at our disposal is the promotion of entrepreneurship—a quintessential American value. By deepening the connections between the entrepreneurial ecosystems of the United States and our partners overseas, we can grow our economies, create jobs, and support businesses that will have lasting impact and create prosperity. The good news is that this is easy to do, because the world is more interconnected than ever before. We benefit from unprecedented opportunities to help entrepreneurs access the capital, resources, and networks they need to succeed. We also have the strong support and leadership of President Obama, who is personally committed to promoting entrepreneurship worldwide. Spain is a country with a strong and growing entrepreneurial spirit, a plethora of talent, and solid business networks. Although it is starting to emerge from economic crisis, there is still much work to be done to ensure Spain’s continued recovery. The United States Mission is doing its part to consolidate the country’s economic progress by helping a new generation of entrepreneurs achieve their full potential, and generate jobs and economic growth. We have established a strong partnership with TeamLabs, an organization that teaches the concept of entrepreneurship and engages with thousands of high school students across all regions of Spain. We have produced animated videos for youth called You®Company which tell real life stories of Spanish and US entrepreneurs while exploring the values of motivation, innovation, corporate social responsibility, failure, and critical thinking. We have also organized an Alumni Mentoring Program that we use to link up business leaders, prominent entrepreneurs, and alumni of United States Embassy exchange programs to coach aspiring entrepreneurs and help them build their network of contacts. This past June, we took our entrepreneurship programs to a new level with the launch of IN3 (IN-cubed)—Innovators, Investors, and Institutions—in partnership with Google and Chamberi Valley, a Spanish entrepreneurship association. Aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and investment in Spain, IN3 was the first community event hosted at Campus Madrid, one of only a handful of Google spaces around the world where entrepreneurs can learn, connect, and build companies that will change the world. In August 2015, the International Monetary Fund released a report stating that Spain has more obstacles to entrepreneurship than any other European country. IN3 directly addressed these challenges by bringing together Spanish and American innovators, investors, and institutions to discuss common challenges and solutions for scaling-up international companies. The event provided Spanish entrepreneurs the opportunity to hear from leading US counterparts and tech investors on how to overcome institutional and investment challenges that inhibit business growth. It also offered US entrepreneurs the chance to explore areas of potential collaboration with their Spanish counterparts and learn from their experiences expanding into other European and Latin American markets. It provided a forum where entrepreneurs and policymakers exchanged ideas on the best ways to promote the creation of new businesses and help successful companies grow. Finally, it allowed US and Spanish innovators the opportunity to discuss their experiences with senior Spanish government officials. Through these interactions, IN3 helped to equip entrepreneurs with the tools they need to overcome the challenges of expanding their businesses—from finance, to mentorship, to regulations. I was honored to be joined at IN3 by the Administrator of the United States Small Business Administration Maria Contreras-Sweet, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, His Majesty King Felipe VI of Spain, and leaders from the Spanish government. With their support, we elevated the importance of entrepreneurship and the crucial role entrepreneurs play in driving growth and creating jobs in Spain. Our message reached an audience of 53 million people in Spain through local media exposure, another 3.25 million on Twitter, and became a top-trending topic on US social media. Not only did the conference promote entrepreneurship and bilateral investment opportunities to a diverse audience, but IN3 generated real investment and new business growth for Spanish and US firms. For example, Opinno, the consulting and events firm that produced IN3, established new ties with US design thinking firms and academic institutions and plans to partner with these organizations to propel their international expansion. Several new investments were made in small and medium-sized Spanish companies, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the Embassy continues to hear of additional business sparked by the conference.
- Topic:
- Economics, Entrepreneurship, Recovery, and IMF
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Spain, and North America
35155. Engaging the Swiss on Apprenticeships: Economic Diplomacy with Results Back Home
- Author:
- Susan G. LeVine
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- The Ambassadors Review
- Institution:
- Council of American Ambassadors
- Abstract:
- One of the core priorities for the State Department and for the Obama administration overall is shared prosperity because, as Secretary Kerry frequently points out, “Economic policy is foreign policy.” The United States firmly believes that, by growing bilateral economic ties, the United States as well as the host country will prosper. The metrics around our economic relationship with Switzerland are a perfect example of that: Switzerland is one of the top ten foreign direct investors in the United States and number one in research and development; the United States has been the largest growth market for Swiss exports over the past five years; and Swiss companies generate almost half a million jobs in the United States—really great jobs with an average salary of $100,000 per year. With those ties in mind, I set out to meet with Swiss companies of all kinds to understand how they do business in Switzerland and how to deepen their investment in the United States. What I learned in the course of that exploration will, I believe, profoundly and positively affect both countries economically, and also have a positive effect on the world.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, Economic Cooperation, and Job Creation
- Political Geography:
- United States, Europe, Switzerland, and North America
35156. Manufacturing Extremism: Political Consequences of Profit-Seeking Media
- Author:
- Siddhartha Bandyopadhyay, Kalyan Chatterjee, and Jaideep Roy
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP)
- Abstract:
- We analyze the consequences of a monopolistic, non-partisan, profit-maximizing media on policy divergence. The media undertakes costly coverage that may reveal the quality of an office-seeking political challenger only if quality-conscious voters pay an access fee. Voters are ideologically homogenous and the incumbent politician is a populist with known quality. We show that while media absence implies a populist challenger, media presence yields platform extremism: it creates demand for information about quality and provides incentives to the media to invest in coverage that are exploited by high-quality challengers to signal strength. Keywords: Unobserved quality, Political challenger, Demand for electoral news, Media coverage, Platform extremism.
- Topic:
- Politics, Elections, Media, and Political Extremism
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35157. Below the Threshold: The Law Governing the Use of Force Against Non-State Actors in the Absence of a Non-International Armed Conflict
- Author:
- Daniel Hessel, Julia Shu, and Sarah Weiner
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- Boko Haram attacks civilians in Nigeria. The Islamic State launches attacks in Paris. Terrorists take hostages at a hotel in Mali. Mexican drug gangs threaten government officials and civilians. Houthi rebels seek to take control of the government in Yemen—and succeed. States increasingly face security threats from non-state actors, which have led states and observers to ask what states can do in response. What legal framework should apply? What constraints do states face? When can states resort to the use of military force to address threats posed to them by non-state actors, either on their own territory or on the territory of another state? The answer to these questions turns on whether the conflict in question rises to the level of a non-international armed conflict (NIAC). Based on the drafting history of international humanitarian law (IHL) governing NIACs, international jurisprudence, recent state practice, and academic commentary, this paper concludes that a NIAC does not exist unless the conflict passes an intensity threshold. In other words, the intensity of the conflict distinguishes generalized violence involving a non-state actor from a NIAC. Once the existence of a NIAC is established, states participating in it will be governed by relevant IHL.
- Topic:
- Non State Actors, Military Intervention, Conflict, and International Humanitarian Law (IHL)
- Political Geography:
- Nigeria and Global Focus
35158. Common Article 1 and Duty to "Ensure Respect"
- Author:
- Zachary Manfredi
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- This paper investigates whether the “to ensure respect” clause of Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions creates third state obligations. Third state obligations could impose both negative and positive duties on states to ensure that other states and some non-state actors comply with the Conventions. This issue has gained salience in light of the imminent publication of new set of commentaries on the Conventions by the International Committee for the Red Cross. The new commentaries will likely suggest that third state obligations under Common Article 1 are robust. This paper assesses the anticipated ICRC position in light of both the drafting history of Common Article 1 and subsequent interpretations by major international tribunals and states. It concludes that Common Article 1 provides for some third state obligations, but that their scope and content remains underspecified and highly contested.
- Topic:
- International Law, Non State Actors, State, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Geneva Convention, and ICRC
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35159. The Applicability of International and Domestic Immigration Law to Relocated Guantanamo Detainees
- Author:
- Sarah Weiner
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- The physical relocation of detainees from Guantanamo to the United States would not meaningfully alter U.S. obligations under domestic immigration law or international law concerning refoulement. Domestic immigration law would not affect U.S. authority to bring aliens into the United States and to detain those aliens under the laws of war. Detainees would not enter the United States as immigrants, but rather would remain legally “at the border” during their detention. If a detainee secures his release from law-of-war detention, then the United States would be prohibited from transferring the former detainee to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. This obligation applies equally to detainees held at Guantanamo and in the United States. If the United States could not find a suitable country to accept the former detainee, then the United States may have the authority to hold the alien indefinitely in immigration detention, provided that his custody meets statutory requirements. This authority is constitutionally untested and potentially inconsistent with obligations under international law, but these concerns would apply equally to both Guantanamo- and U.S.-located former detainees.
- Topic:
- International Law, Immigration, Law, Guantanamo Bay, and Detainees
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
35160. State Responsibility for Non-State Actors that Detain the Course of a NIAC
- Author:
- Emily Chertoff, Lara Dominguez, Zak Manfredi, and Peter Tzeng
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- This white paper addresses three questions that arise when a non-state actor that is receiving assistance from a state actor in a non-international armed conflict engages in detention activities: (1) Under international law, when does a non-state actor have the authority to detain individuals captured in the course of a non-international armed conflict? (2) When does a state providing assistance to a non-state actor become responsible under international law for the nonstate actor’s actions? (3) Assuming such responsibility exists, what actions must the state take if it believes the non-state actor may engage in human rights abuses or violations of the law of armed conflict?
- Topic:
- Non State Actors, State, International Humanitarian Law (IHL), and Detainees
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35161. Defining Loss and Damage: Key challenges and considerations for developing an operational definition
- Author:
- Alexis Durand and Saleemul Huq
- Publication Date:
- 08-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
- Abstract:
- The idea of support for vulnerable countries that experience loss and damage (L&D) from climate change is nothing new, and countries have been proposing such an arrangement from the beginning of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations. Pressure to institutionalize a UNFCCC mechanism on L&D has increased in response to the shortcomings of mitigation policy and the inadequacy of adaptation support for nations and communities already experiencing the worst effects of climate change. At the 18th Conference of Parties (COP) in Doha, the UNFCCC officially invited “all parties… to enhance action on addressing loss and damage” associated with the impacts of climate change and agreed to establish institutional arrangements to address L&D at COP 19. At COP 19 in 2013, the UNFCCC was charged with creating the “institutional arrangements… to address L&D” it had promised a year earlier. This mechanism created, dubbed the “Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage” (WIM), was given the role of addressing L&D from extreme and slow onset events in developing countries “particularly vulnerable” to effects of climate change.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, United Nations, and Loss and Damage (L&D)
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35162. Loss and Damage in INDCs: An investigation of Parties’ statements on L&D and prospects for its inclusion in a Paris Agreement
- Author:
- Victoria Hoffmeister and Saleemul Huq
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD)
- Abstract:
- This paper discusses individual nations’ experiences with Loss and Damage (L&D), their plans to respond, and their calls for international support, as expressed in their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). It also considers the developed-developing nation divide that persists in support for addressing loss and damage within the COP and the importance of including L&D in a Paris agreement.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Paris Agreement, Foreign Assistance, and Loss and Damage (L&D)
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35163. New Energy Strategy of Ukraine Until 2020: Security, Energy Efficiency, Competition
- Author:
- Valeriya Klymenko and Hanna Pashkova
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Security and Defence Quarterly
- Institution:
- Razumkov Centre
- Abstract:
- The proposed “New Energy Strategy of Ukraine until 2020: Security, Energy Efficiency, Competition” (hereinafter referred to as NES 2020) is a comprehensive document for reforming the energy complex of Ukraine for the period until 2020. At the same time, NES 2020 defines, above all, the goals and algorithms for energy sector development, and thus will also remain relevant for creating further long-term strategies and sectoral programmes. Target figures mentioned in the document only demonstrate the general trajectory of energy resources demand and offer development. These figures are to have a more expanded and detailed presentation in the developed action plan of the CMU for implementation of NES 2020. Usually, a strategy, being a document that is the result of target-based programme planning and forecasting in a certain sphere of activity, covers a longer period of time – 10-20 years. However, serious challenges currently faced by Ukraine as a state, given the fact of external aggression and the burden of unresolved issues accumulated during the period of independence with reforming of the national energy complex, require a document with such status for a shorter period of time. The NES 2020 stipulates that by the end of its implementation term the restructuring of the energy complex of Ukraine will be complete, including its transition to modern market models of operation, and that the main safety and energy efficiency targets will be achieved. After 2020, Ukrainian energy sector will move on to a new level of its development – complete integration with the EU energy sector and innovative rebuilding. Thus, implementation of tasks in the energy sector after 2020, will require rather different approaches than those defined by NES 2020, which means – development of a new strategic document. During the development of NES 2020, proposals were considered regarding the content of the suggested document from such respected international organisations, as the International Energy Agency, Energy Community Secretariat, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, World Bank, Delegation of the European Union to Ukraine, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, etc. At the final stage of public consultations regarding NES 2020 draft, an expert discussion was organised, which involved representatives of leading scientific research institutions, companies working in the field, international organisations and NGOs, domestic and foreign experts, media, and based on results of which, the final draft of NES 2020 was created. This document was developed by the Razumkov Centre and other leading nongovernmental, public organisations and scientific research institutions of Ukraine, with support of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Committee on Fuel and Energy Complex, Nuclear Policy and Nuclear Safety. Therefore, the draft of NES 2020 can be rightfully viewed as a result of joint effort of Ukraine’s expert community and reputable international institutions.
- Topic:
- Security, Economics, Politics, Strategic Competition, and Energy
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Ukraine
35164. Law Enforcement System in Ukraine: Status, Problems, Prospects for Reform
- Author:
- Valeriya Klymenko and Hanna Pashkova
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- National Security and Defence
- Institution:
- Razumkov Centre
- Abstract:
- The year 2013 saw the beginning of a unique period in the history of an independent Ukraine. The victory of the Euromaidan, which seemed to be a successful completion of the Revolution of Dignity, in reality was merely the first step on the path of revolutionary transformation of all aspects in the life of Ukrainian society and state. Security issues are of high priority in the ambitious plans of reforms initiated by the Ukrainian government: “The security vector is our certainty about our tomorrow, being peaceful and happy. It is our certainty of justice and inevitable punishment for each crime. Our certainty that no person is unfairly convicted. The certainty of guaranteed security of investments and property”.1 Guaranteeing the required level of domestic security, primarily the security of a person and a citizen, largely depends on the capability of the law enforcement agencies to perform the functions entrusted to them by national law, and their ability to serve the society and not the government or their own selfish interests. In the system of functions delegated by the state to law enforcement agencies, the policing function has a special role, since the police, in addition to being the most numerous structure, is on the “frontier”, where a citizen may receive protection from, or be persecuted by, the state. For this reason, police reform is receiving considerable attention from the Ukrainian government, society and Ukraine’s international partners. The overwhelming majority of police officers also acknowledge the need for radical change, being dissatisfied with working conditions, level of social security and the negative view of their work on the part of society. Analysis of the current reform efforts leads to the conclusion that, despite the presence of many extraordinary aspects and significant positive differences, they still have many features typical of the prior unsuccessful reform attempts. The most important reasons impeding the implementation of the generally positive declarations and concept documents include the lack of political will as well as the pursuit of political and private ends that have nothing in common with the national interests or international standards. Taking into account our own errors is as important for success as studying the diverse international experience. The lack of coordination of reforms from a single centre, despite the formal presence of the respective structure, inefficient use of the tightly limited resources and attempts to substitute minor changes (restructuring, personnel rotations, name changes, etc.) for a true transformation – all of this has been seen on multiple occasions before. The lack of political will is most often mentioned by experts and community activists looking for answers to the questions why the reforms are advancing so slowly or why the results claimed by the politicians remain hardly noticeable for civilians. Society and the entities being reformed may become more optimistic about the success of the reforms if the Government sincerely demonstrates its interest in developing a European model of the police service, and, most importantly, proves it by real actions. The active participation by community activists, non-governmental organisations, and international partners in the reform processes are important but merely auxiliary factors. The duration and resources of a powerful international support are limited and directly depend on the demonstration of practical results. The analytical report is intended to make an intellectual contribution to the joint effort of developing the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, whose performance is evaluated not by statistics or the opinion of the government, but by the satisfaction of society with the quality of the respective services, the citizens’ feeling of safety and justice and their level of trust in and respect for those who protect them.
- Topic:
- Governance, Law Enforcement, Public Opinion, Reform, and Legitimacy
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Ukraine
35165. Party System of Ukraine Before and After Maidan: Changes, Trends, Public Demand
- Author:
- Hanna Pashkova
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- National Security and Defence
- Institution:
- Razumkov Centre
- Abstract:
- Mass protests of citizens against the сriminal, authoritarian regime of V. Yanukovych, known as the Revolution of Dignity, with its epicentre the Maidan was to be a turning point in the modern history of Ukraine, These events differed significantly in scale and consequences – from the final enforcement by Ukraine of its geopolitical choice, beginning of practical implementation of the course of European integration through reforms in all areas of public life to Russian military aggression, thousands of casualties and the loss of a part of the national economy and sovereign territory. The events of 2013-2014 had a significant impact on the political system in Ukraine. After the fall of V. Yanukovych’s regime and the former president’s fleeing to Russia, the 2004 Constitution of Ukraine was reenacted. All supreme state institutions underwent renewal. The new President and the Verkhovna Rada were legitimised by special elections and a new Cabinet of Ministers was formed. The process began of reforming the constitutional principles of government organisation in relation to its various branches and levels. Ukraine’s party system, which is an important element of the political system in general, also underwent significant changes. The political parties that belonged to the pro-presidential coalition before Maidan (Party of Regions and Communist Party of Ukraine) were removed from power and actually descended from the political arena. A significant reformatting of the political forces representing the new government took place. This part of the political spectrum is represented both by the “old” (“Batkivshchyna”, “Svoboda”) and the “new” parties that entered the political arena and were formed during Maidan or after it (“Samopomich”, Radical Party of Oleh Lyashko, “Right Sector”, “People’s Front”, Petro Poroshenko Bloc). The post-election period was marked by a heightened struggle not only between the new leading forces and the opposition, but also by competition and conflict between the political forces that in the period from November 2013 to February 2014 had acted as a “unified front”. The drastic changes in the party and political spectrum engendered confusion of the public electoral preferences, especially in the part that did not find any equivalent to their established sympathies among the new parties. There are still some free “political niches”, which can be claimed by new party structures. The data of public opinion surveys demonstrate that those political forces, which were enthusiastically received by society during the early parliamentary elections in October 2014, subsequently started losing their voter support. All this indicates that the party system of Ukraine is undergoing a transformation process, a process that apparently will continue at least until the next scheduled parliamentary elections. However, the development of Ukraine as a democratic European state requires an effective and representative political system, which is impossible without effective, institutionalised political parties.
- Topic:
- Social Movement, Reform, Domestic Politics, Protests, Political Parties, and Euromaidan Revolution
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Ukraine
35166. Prospects of Ukrainian-Russian Relations
- Author:
- Hanna Pashkova
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- National Security and Defence
- Institution:
- Razumkov Centre
- Abstract:
- The “hybrid” war of Russia against Ukraine has continued since February 2014. To date, the multiple efforts of international diplomacy, unfortunately, have not resulted either in settlement or even in a “freeze” of the situation in eastern Ukraine. The previous Minsk Agreements adopted in September 2014 (Minsk Protocol and Minsk Memorandum) were disrupted and Russian aggression in Donbas continued. On 12 February 2015, the presidents of Ukraine, France, Germany, and Russia agreed on a new document, “Package of Measures for Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”, which envisaged conflict settlement by the end of 2015. However, implementation of these measures was postponed to 2016 and, given the course of events, has actually become a process which is difficult to forecast and which is indefinite in time.1 It should be noted that on the one hand, the situation in eastern Ukraine has not undergone significant changes for the better – hostilities are ongoing. There are persistent fundamental differences in the positions of the two sides, Ukraine and Russia, on conflict resolution. (In particular, implementation of the Minsk Agreements in line with the Russian scenario threatens to destabilise the internal situation in Ukraine and destroy its statehood.) On the other hand, the international situation is rapidly changing; we see further escalation of international terrorism (the terrorist attacks in Paris), the “migration crisis” in the EU, Russia’s military intervention in Syria, and the gaining momentum of the acute conflict of Moscow and Ankara. This dulls the perception of events in Donbas on the part of the international community, renders these events a somewhat “background” nature in the West, and urges attempts to “freeze” the situation there at any cost, including at the expense of Ukraine’s own interests. Meanwhile, Russia proceeds with military expansion in Donbas, aimed at the destruction of Ukrainian statehood, and now there is no reason to expect a change for the better in the Kremlin’s policy. Thus, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (which has a regional and global dimension) acquires a long-term nature with recurrent escalation and unpredictable consequences. Russian aggression – the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine – has entailed profound changes in bilateral relations: (а) the legal framework of Kyiv and Moscow relations has been destroyed; (b) institutional mechanisms of state-to-state relations have been destroyed; (c) contacts at the highest level have become impossible, political and diplomatic relations have become confrontational; (d) Ukraine has suffered huge human, economic, and territorial losses; (e) an unprecedented curtailment of economic cooperation has taken place; (f) deep alienation between the peoples of Ukraine and Russia has emerged. The previous official ideology of “strategic partnership”, “fraternal peoples”, and “neighbourliness”, embedded in many joint agreements, has lost its sense.2 A new political-ideological reality has emerged in the relations between Russia and Ukraine. Therefore, a new assessment and review of the nature, ideology, and general institutional system of relations with Russia in key areas (politics, security, economy, energy, humanitarian sphere, etc.) is required, given that the main threat to Ukrainian statehood is the current government in place in the Russian Federation. There is a need to design a new conceptual model of coexistence with Putin’s Russia, which would reflect current realities and prospects of bilateral relations and would take into account the position of Western partner countries and international organisations. However, it is important to keep in mind at least two things. First, one should clearly distinguish the current Putin’s regime and the country of Russia as it is and its society. Second, in rebuffing Russian aggression, a strategic goal should be seen – to restore confidence and interest of the societies of both countries in peaceful coexistence and respect the right of each state to determine the state system in the country and its civilisation development vector.
- Topic:
- Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, Energy Policy, Bilateral Relations, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
35167. Who Wins Olympic Bids?
- Author:
- Wolfgang Maennig and Christopher Vierhaus
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
- Abstract:
- The prospect of hosting the Olympic Games is attractive to many cities around the world. This article examines 147 variables’ potential to discriminate successful from unsuccessful Olympic bids. Our stepwise, rank-ordered logistic regression model includes 10 determinants supporting the contention that economic, political and sports/Olympic factors are important for winning the host city election. IOC members favor cities if more than 2/3 of the population support the bid, but disfavor bidding cities of fewer than 2.5 million inhabitants and bids lacking a sufficient number of existing stadiums. Hosts are characterized by larger markets and higher medium-term growth economies. Olympic bids that follow a political liberalization are rewarded with additional votes. Moreover, successful bids are more experienced at hosting and have no dispute with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Finally, we observe “it is the country’s turn” election behavior – countries that have not hosted the Olympics for a long period are preferred.
- Topic:
- Elections, Sports, Olympics, and Bids
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35168. Ensuring good governance and preventing corruption in the planning of major sporting events – open issues
- Author:
- Wolfgang Maennig
- Publication Date:
- 07-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
- Abstract:
- International sports will have to strengthen their efforts to exclude persons with morals in conflict with their sports. IOC and FIFA should mirror their top ambitions in athletic and financial areas by similarly leading ambitions to serve human mankind more generally. To encounter critiques that the organizing of major sporting events are „elitist actions“ IOC and FIFA should declare ex-ante referenda as a precondition for bidding. In order to reduce the funds available for corruption, the role of public finance in major sporting events should be overthought. At least broadcasters under public law public should be excluded from the bidding for TV. FIFA and other sporting federations should make public their payments to member federations etc and the underlying decision criteria.
- Topic:
- Corruption, Governance, Sports, Referendum, FIFA, and Public Finance
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35169. News shocks in the data: Olympic Games and their macroeconomic effects – Reply
- Author:
- Viktoria Langer, Wolfgang Maennig, and Felix J. Richter
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
- Abstract:
- Recent analyses relate increases in the growth rate of countries to anticipation effects caused by bidding for the Olympic Games, so called news shocks. We argue that these findings should be interpreted cautiously. First, these analyses may suffer from an omitted variable bias because they neglect key determinants of economic growth. Second, these analyses compare the bidders for the Olympic Games to all other countries in the world, which constitutes a comparison between groups that show large differences in their structural characteristics. We show that including established determinants of economic growth and comparing the bidders to a suitable control group may lead to a complete disappearance of the anticipated economic effects of Olympic Games.
- Topic:
- GDP, Sports, Economic Growth, Olympics, and Macroeconomics
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35170. The Rising Gulf. The New Ambitions of the Gulf Monarchies
- Author:
- Valeria Talbot
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- Over the last years the Gulf monarchies have emerged as assertive players both in the MENA region and in the global context. Relying on their huge energy reserves and financial assets, these states acquired increasing international leverage. On the one hand, the oil monarchies moved eastwards exploiting the opportunity provided by emerging Asian markets to diversify their energy relations and economic interests. On the other, in the wake of the Arab uprisings they adopted a more proactive approach that dramatically altered their influence in the region. Nonetheless, Gulf activism comes at a time when the monarchies are facing important internal and external challenges. In this complex puzzle, the report aims to assess to what extent the rising Gulf monarchies are able to play as key actors both at the regional and the international levels. Are these monarchies adopting sustainable domestic policies in the long-term? How have they extended their influence in the MENA region? How are they reshaping their international relations? How do they act in the world energy market? What are the implications of the Gulf’s new assertiveness for the EU?
- Topic:
- International Relations, Economy, Monarchy, Energy, and Regional Politics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Gulf Nations
35171. Iran After the Deal: The Road Ahead
- Author:
- Paola Magri and Annalisa Perteghella
- Publication Date:
- 09-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- The agreement reached in Vienna on 14 July, 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, Germany) has been greeted as an historical achievement. While offering a long-lasting negotiated solution to one of the biggest crises of the last decade, the deal represents an opportunity for a deep recalibration of the balance of power in the Middle East. It also paves the way to some sort of rapprochement between Iran and the United States. But the deal is also likely to have an impact on Iranian domestic politics, not least on its economy, which, after repeated rounds of sanctions, languishes in deep crisis. This report aims to assess the potential effects of the deal by trying to answer the following question: what’s next for Iran, the Middle East and the countries involved in the negotiations? In particular, the report provides an assessment of the JCPOA agreed upon in Vienna. It also analyzes the impact of the deal on Iranian domestic politics as well as the consequences for its economy. In addition, it examines its effects on the balance of power in the Middle East, as well as on relations between Iran and the United States, and Iran and Russia. Finally a number of policy recommendations for the EU are provided.
- Topic:
- Treaties and Agreements, Sanctions, European Union, Economy, and Domestic Politics
- Political Geography:
- Iran and Middle East
35172. Africa: Still Rising?
- Author:
- Giovanni Carbone
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- After decades of unsatisfying performances, economic growth took off in many sub-Saharan states at the beginning of the 21st century. More recently, however, the end of the commodity cycle – particularly with the oil price drop – and the rise of jihadist violence rocked the “Emerging Africa” boat. Is this the beginning of the end for sustained growth in the region? This Report investigates the economic impact of these new challenges upon Africa’s frontier markets. It shows that the positive economic trajectory of recent years is being negatively affected, particularly for oil-exporting countries. However, while more caution is needed, Africa’s growth prospects on the whole remain fairly good – at least for now. But there is an increasing need to understand the specific risks that individual countries face and the opportunities that they offer, as well as to re-assess the potential of each specific sector of economic activity. The three largest economies in the region – Nigeria, South Africa and Angola – are all under pressure. Others, including Ethiopia, Mozambique and Kenya, are still projected to achieve remarkable growth rates.
- Topic:
- Political Violence, Development, Oil, Economic Growth, and Jihad
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa
35173. Beyond Ukraine. EU and Russia in Search of a New Relation
- Author:
- Aldo Ferrari
- Publication Date:
- 06-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- Due to the Ukrainian crisis, relations between the EU and Russia hit rock bottom, the lowest point from the end of the Cold War. Indeed, it is crystal clear that today’s dispute is nothing but the latest chapter of a long story of misunderstandings and conflicting strategies on the post -Soviet states of Eastern Europe and South Caucasus. The further deepening of this cleavage would inflict serious damage on all interested parties: the EU, Russia and several post-Soviet states. Why is Ukraine so important both for EU and Russia? What are the real origins of the current crisis that brought to an open confrontation between Russia and the EU? What is the rationale behind Russia’s firm opposition to a further NATO enlargement? What are the viable options to escape the fate of a new ‘Cold War’?
- Topic:
- International Relations, NATO, European Union, and Crisis Management
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Europe, and Ukraine
35174. The Return of Egypt. Internal Challenges and Regional Game
- Author:
- Stefano Maria Torelli
- Publication Date:
- 07-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI)
- Abstract:
- Egypt has reappeared again as a leading actor in the Middle East. After the fall of Mubarak, the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood and its ouster, the country has chosen its new ‘strongman’. Following the elections of al-Sisi, Egypt is back to pursuing a pro-active policy not only internally, but also in the neighbourhood. The restoration of the strategic axis with Saudi Arabia and the struggle against radical Islam are the two pillars of this new political phase. However, there are critical elements, too, from further deterioration of the political and civil liberties indexes, to the emergence of jihadist groups in the Sinai, to the enduring economic and financial difficulties. As a result of these changes, Europe and Italy should calibrate a new policy aimed at safeguarding their interests,especially from the points of view of security, stability and the fight against terrorism, also promoting more inclusive practices by the Cairo government vis-à-vis the opposition (including the Muslim Brotherhood) and developing policies which can help Egypt to respond to future challenges in terms of economic growth, poverty alleviation, demographic pressure and the creation of employment opportunities.
- Topic:
- Demographics, Poverty, Economic Growth, Domestic Politics, Islamism, and Regional Politics
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Egypt
35175. A Cautionary Tale of Zambia’s International Sovereign Bond Issuances
- Author:
- Shebo Nalishebo and Albert Halwampa
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
- Abstract:
- In recent years, Zambia has been faced with the increased need to plug huge infrastructural gaps. However, the slowing down of bilateral and multilateral financing due to austerity measures in developed economies has made the country diversify its budget and project financing options by issuing Eurobonds. Eurobonds are commercial borrowings by governments in currencies other than their own - in Zambia’s case, the borrowing is denominated in US dollars. Since 2012, the Zambian Government has issued two ten-year sovereign bonds collectively worth US$1.75 billion mainly to finance infrastructure projects. Eurobonds bring with them opportunities for economic development, but there are risks. This report assesses the current legal and institutional frameworks governing borrowing from international capital markets in Zambia, including the role of credit rating agencies. It also examines the benefits, costs and risks associated with the issuance of sovereign bonds, including the cost and risk of sovereign defaults. It also proposes the mitigation of these costs and risks. Eurobonds offer African countries easy access to monies that are free from the stringent conditionalities that often come with the traditional concessional borrowing. Eurobonds also strengthen macroeconomic discipline and are used as a benchmark for pricing subnational bonds. If the borrowed funds are spent on projects that offer a greater scope for augmenting revenue earnings and creating employment opportunities, this would accelerate economic growth and reduce the high poverty levels that Africa faces.
- Topic:
- Economy, Economic Development, Public Debt, Bonds, and Eurobonds
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Zambia
35176. Eurobonds Repayment: Limiting the Risks
- Author:
- Shebo Nalishebo and Albert Halwampa
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
- Abstract:
- In recent years, the Zambian economy has been growing strongly and the country has increasingly been faced with the need to plug huge infrastructural gaps. However, the slowing down of bilateral and multilateral financing due to austerity measures in developed economies and the World Bank’s reclassification of Zambia as a lower middle income country has led financiers to divert concessional loans to other needy countries in the low income bracket. Consequently, Zambia has had to diversify its budget and project financing options by issuing Eurobonds which are commercial borrowings by governments in currencies other than their own - in Zambia’s case, it is denominated in US dollars. Since 2012, the Zambian Government has issued two ten-year sovereign bonds collectively worth US$1.75 billion to mainly finance infrastructure projects. These two bonds amounted to 37% of Zambia’s external debt in 2014. With an average coupon rate of 6.9%, the two bonds have bullet repayment structures, implying that lump sum principal payments will be paid at the end of their respective ten-year maturity periods. The coupon rate is the interest rate at the time of issuance. Notwithstanding the high interest payments of over US$125 million annually, the bullet structure of the two bonds may have significant repayment risks as the country is expected to pay out the US$1.75 billion within a two-year period (in 2022 and 2024). The country may experience difficulty in repaying or refinancing the face value at maturity if the money is not spent in activities with high economic returns and if there are adverse changes in its exchange rate or international market conditions. The risks are already on the horizon – the recent depreciation of the Kwacha has increased debt servicing costs, while the low copper prices have reduced the much-needed export revenues used to service debt. Has Zambia dug itself into another debt hole? What measures can be put in place to mitigate the risk of a pending default?
- Topic:
- Economy, Economic Growth, Bonds, and Eurobonds
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Zambia
35177. The Normative Terrain of the Global Refugee Regime
- Author:
- Alexander Betts
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Abstract:
- The global refugee regime encompasses the rules, norms, principles, and decision-making procedures that govern states' responses to refugees. It comprises a set of norms, primarily those entrenched in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which defines who is a refugee and the rights to which such people are entitled. It also comprises an international organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has supervisory responsibility for ensuring that states meet their obligations toward refugees.
- Topic:
- United Nations, Refugees, Displacement, and Humanitarian Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35178. Nuevos planteamientos en la seguridad energética de la Unión Europea y opciones en el Mediterráneo Occidental
- Author:
- Soledad Segoviano
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- Durante la última década, la seguridad energética ha experimentado una escalada en la lista de prioridades estratégicas de la política energética y exterior de la UE. Las profundas transformaciones en el panorama energético global, impulsadas por los continuos avances tecnológicos, importantes desafíos geopolíticos, además de los imperativos derivados de la transición hacia un sistema energético descarbonizado, exigen la reevaluación de la estrategia de seguridad energética de la UE. Un proceso que, sin embargo, se encuentra condicionado por las tensiones derivadas de la necesidad declarada en favor de políticas de cooperación y coordinación reforzadas y el respeto por los intereses nacionales energéticos de los Estados Miembros. El objetivo de este trabajo se centra en analizar los desafíos que afronta la estrategia de seguridad energética de la UE en un mundo en transformación, identificando políticas y mecanismos que contribuyan a su fortalecimiento. La promoción y desarrollo de unas sólidas relaciones energéticas entre la UE y sus vecinos del sur del Mediterráneo representan una extraordinaria oportunidad para diseñar y alcanzar renovados objetivos estratégicos en beneficio de ambas regiones.
- Topic:
- Security, Energy Policy, and European Union
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Mediterranean
35179. Hacia un nuevo y diferente «Flanco Sur» en el Gran Magreb-Sahel
- Author:
- Raquel Barrás and Pablo Rey García
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- La unión de espacios subgobernados, la corrupción, el crimen organizado y terrorismo es la amenaza a la que se enfrenta la UE y sus estados miembros en el Gran Magreb, el cual está recreando un nuevo y diferente Flanco Sur al que existía durante la Guerra Fría. El aumento de la actividad extremista en la región del Sahel-Sáhara a partir de 2005 ha ido en paralelo con el crecimiento de las redes de crimen organizado transnacional a través del área. Aunque hay un intenso debate sobre su relación, intensidad e impacto, es una dinámica innegable en el área. La UE no tiene realmente una política unificada Magreb-Sahel y en términos de crimen organizado y terrorismo, el Sahel no se puede separar del Magreb. Hay una comprensión limitada y parcial del problema tanto en términos de amenazas como en soluciones viables, ampliado irremediablemente por la acción de Boko Haram y desbordando la visión, proyección y estrategia de la UE. A pesar del "Sahel Regional Action Plan 2015-2020", las medidas tomadas son reducidas, muy recientes y probablemente insuficientes y tardías desde el punto de vista de la dinámica y sinergia entre terrorismo-crimen organizado en un contexto de corrupción. La UE sigue manteniendo un enfoque seguridad-desarrollo, básicamente en una concepción de seguridad humana, a pesar de que este enfoque es altamente discutible para enfrentarse a este tipo de amenazas.
- Topic:
- Terrorism, European Union, Conflict, Hybrid Warfare, and Organized Crime
- Political Geography:
- Europe, North Africa, Morocco, and Sahel
35180. Hostis ante portas: el poder, la guerra y la figura del enemigo en las relaciones internacionales
- Author:
- Valerio d'Angelo
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- En este artículo me propongo enmarcar la evolución de la figura del enemigo político al interior de la más general evolución del ordenamiento del sistema internacional. La tesis que se afirma es que la detección del enemigo es siempre una construcción discursiva consecuente a las trasformaciones del poder hegemónico y de su manera de conducir una guerra. Ilustraré por lo tanto los cambios históricos que la noción de enemigo ha sufrido, desde Westfalia hasta los modernos programas de contrainsurgencia. Detectaré tres grandes macromarcos (el mundo Westfaliano, la Guerra Fría, el post-11/S) donde un cambio significativo del equilibrio del poder conlleva un cambio en su capacidad de librar una guerra y, de ahí, una distinta identificación de la figura del enemigo.
- Topic:
- Sovereignty, War, and Counterinsurgency
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35181. Las «nuevas guerras»: una propuesta metodológica para su análisis
- Author:
- Victor-Mario Bados Nieto and Marién Duran Cenit
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- Hoy día existen numerosos conflictos con características diferentes y singulares difícilmente encuadrables en los arquetipos de los conflictos armados tradicionales o guerras convencionales. De los muchos y variados apelativos surgidos principalmente desde el Fin de las Guerra Fría y como contraposición a las guerras clásicas, fue el concepto de "nuevas guerras" el que tuvo una mayor acogida. Sin embargo, como muchas otras denominaciones, consideramos que no podemos apreciarlo como una herramienta enteramente práctica para el estudio de toda la tipología de conflictos que existen. Por ello, el presente trabajo, mediante la revisión de la literatura más importante sobre estos temas, tiene como objeto proporcionar una herramienta teórico-metodológica, para que mediante la operacionalización de las variables identificativas de las "nuevas guerras", se puedan estudiar de forma más pormenorizada los conflictos contemporáneos para poder establecer comparaciones que arrojen luz sobre las similitudes y las diferencias.
- Topic:
- Ethnic Conflict, War, Fragile/Failed State, and Violence
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35182. A New Threat Landscape in 2015
- Author:
- Rohan Gunaratna
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- The al Qaeda-centric terrorist landscape is eclipsed by an Islamic State (IS)-centric threat landscape. Today, an al Qaeda-IS hybrid influences and shapes the global threat landscape of political violence. With three dozen threat groups in Asia, Africa and the Middle East expressing support to the Caliphate and pledging allegiance to self-styled Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in 2014, IS will expand its international footprint in 2015. IS is transforming from a group in the Iraq and Syrian Theatre to a global network.
- Topic:
- Terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and Non-Traditional Threats
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Middle East, and Syria
35183. Does Al Qaeda Central Still Matter?
- Author:
- Kangil Lee
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal
- Institution:
- Unidad de investigación sobre seguridad y cooperación (UNISCI)
- Abstract:
- This article examines whether Al Qaeda Central are still relevant or not. By investigating Al Qaeda Central’s activities, which are aimed at provoking violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as its continuous plots of direct attacks against the US, this article shows that Al Qaeda’s operational capability is stronger than anticipated by the US and other scholars. In addition, Al Qaeda affiliates maintain a close relationship with the group which in turn facilitates Al Qaeda Central’s resiliency. Moreover, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)’s aggressive support and contribution to the Al Qaeda network indicates that Al Qaeda Central’s longevity depends on its relationship with affiliates. The article concludes that under these conditions, Al Qaeda Central still has a place in global security discussions.
- Topic:
- Terrorism, Taliban, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and Haqqani Network
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan and South Asia
35184. International Experience of and Policy Suggestions on Innovation and Entrepreneurship Oriented Incubators
- Author:
- Pangoal Institution
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Pangoal Institution
- Abstract:
- In the 2015 government work report, Premier Li Keqiang has mentioned twice the concept of “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”. He stresses that along with greater supplies of public goods and services, these will become the twin engines to drive the development and upgrade of China’s economy. At the same time, innovation is a critical impetus to revolutionize traditional industries and build new economic engine. Innovation and entrepreneurship oriented incubator, as an important carrier of new innovation service platform that meets the need to establish maker space in the network age, has attracted more and more public attention. Since its birth in the late 1950s, innovation and entrepreneurship oriented incubator has been a strong impetus to the economic prosperity of different countries and regions in the world and also plays a prominent role in nurturing small and medium enterprises and creating jobs. As the birthplace of the incubator, the United States has established a relatively mature incubator industry operation mechanism after experiencing the four stages of initial creation, multi-functional development, high-speed growth and innovative transformation. The US has become the global leader in the field of Innovation and entrepreneurship oriented incubator with its innovative incubator model featuring “business accelerator” and “virtual incubator”. Despite its later start than the US in this field, Germany has formed its own shareholding incubator model centered on interest chain and incubator model linked by intermediary service agency as well as international expansion model featuring overseas incubator, which shows a tendency to surpass the US. In France, many incubator models such as the ones funded by the government, the ones comprehensively and the ones established by enterprises have gained fairly good results. Israel, which used to be a small developing country with a low population and poor resource, has now became a developed country with its high-tech industries significantly promoted by incubator.
- Topic:
- Development, Entrepreneurship, Economy, and Innovation
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
35185. State Practice on Sovereign Immunity in Employment Disputes Involving Embassy and Consular Staff
- Author:
- Julia Brower
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- This report identifies and analyzes foreign case law and statutes on sovereign immunity in employment disputes brought by dismissed embassy and consular staff from twenty-seven countries and two international courts. State practice remains quite diverse, and it is not possible to identify one clear, specific majority test for whether foreign States are immune in such disputes. However, several recent trends exist, with state practice in Europe in particular starting to coalesce around a common approach. The findings of this report must be considered with the limitations of the research in mind. The vast majority of case law surveyed in this report is from Europe and English-speaking countries. Only a handful of translated decisions or statutes from Latin America, Africa, and Asia could be found, and significantly, this report does not include any decisions from China or Brazil.
- Topic:
- Law, Protected People, Diplomatic Immunity, and Sovereign Immunity
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35186. General Principles Regarding the Legal Validity of RUD
- Author:
- Eric Chung
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the legal validity of reservations, understandings, and declarations (RUDs) in both U.S. and international courts. The analysis is based on 46 U.S. cases discussing RUDs as a general category and 26 U.S. cases discussing interpretative understandings and declarations, out of approximately 650 reviewed cases. The analysis is also based on 13 cases from international courts out of approximately 300 reviewed cases, including cases from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) tribunal and arbitral bodies, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Inter- American Court of Human Rights. In the U.S. cases, RUDs are nearly always recognized as valid. For example, non-self- execution reservations in the Convention Against Torture (CAT) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) are usually treated as legally controlling. The same is true for the reservation to the ICCPR that reserves the right to use capital punishment on juveniles despite treaty prohibitions, as well as interpretative understandings and declarations defining specific terms used in the CAT. U.S. courts have only questioned the validity of RUDs when they were not properly communicated to other state parties, did not support a contrary interpretation, or focused on issues of wholly domestic concern (although the only case on this point was vacated and is not precedential). In addition, individual circuit judges, writing in dissent, have examined whether RUDs violate the separation of powers principle or are inconsistent with the treaty language and international law. With few exceptions, international courts also usually defer to RUDs. The ICJ has indicated that it can invalidate a reservation as incompatible with the object and purpose of a treaty pursuant to Article 19 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties. Yet the ICJ has only invalidated a RUD when it determined that a reservation was in fact an interpretative declaration (as opposed to a reservation modifying the state’s legal obligations under the treaty). This has been particularly important in cases where the treaty in question prohibits reservations, such as the UNCLOS. Rules stipulated by a treaty also shape how other courts review RUDs. The European Court of Human Rights, for instance, applies treaty rules to invalidate RUDs that are of a general character or fail to include a statement of the law concerned. Following a number of practices can reduce a RUD’s vulnerability to invalidation in U.S. and international courts. For U.S. courts, a RUD is extremely unlikely to be questioned if it is documented clearly at the time of ratification and communicated to all treaty parties at the time of ratification. For international courts, a RUD is unlikely to be questioned if, in addition to the above factors, it is not counter to the “object and purpose” of a treaty, it is not objected to by other parties, and it is not a reservation masquerading as an interpretive declaration in a situation where reservations are prohibited by the relevant treaty.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Law, Legal Theory, and Courts
- Political Geography:
- United States of America and North America
35187. Below the Threshold: The Law Governing the Use of Force Against Non-State Actors in the Absence of a Non-International Armed Conflict
- Author:
- Daniel Hessel, Julia Shu, and Sarah Weiner
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- Boko Haram attacks civilians in Nigeria. The Islamic State launches attacks in Paris. Terrorists take hostages at a hotel in Mali. Mexican drug gangs threaten government officials and civilians. Houthi rebels seek to take control of the government in Yemen—and succeed. States increasingly face security threats from non-state actors, which have led states and observers to ask what states can do in response. What legal framework should apply? What constraints do states face? When can states resort to the use of military force to address threats posed to them by non-state actors, either on their own territory or on the territory of another state? The answer to these questions turns on whether the conflict in question rises to the level of a non-international armed conflict (NIAC). Based on the drafting history of international humanitarian law (IHL) governing NIACs, international jurisprudence, recent state practice, and academic commentary, this paper concludes that a NIAC does not exist unless the conflict passes an intensity threshold. In other words, the intensity of the conflict distinguishes generalized violence involving a non-state actor from a NIAC. Once the existence of a NIAC is established, states participating in it will be governed by relevant IHL. But if states are only governed by the IHL applicable to NIACs once an intensity threshold has been crossed, what law applies below that threshold? The answer varies with the circumstances, depending on whether the state is responding to a threat within its own territory or from outside; and if the threat is from outside the state, whether the host state consents to the use of force against the non-state actor. Thus, to answer the question of what law applies before a NIAC is established, this white paper analyzes three different scenarios in which a state contemplates forceful engagement with a non-state actor. Each scenario presumes that t he non- state actor is organized and has engaged in some violence, but that the intensity of the clash has not crossed the intensity threshold and thus has not risen yet to the level of a NIAC. 1. In Scenario One, a state seeks to engage a non-state actor that operates exclusively within the state’s territorial borders. 2. In Scenario Two, an intervening state seeks to engage a non-state actor located in another state, with the consent of the host state. 3. In Scenario Three, an intervening state seeks to engage a non-state actor located in another state, without the consent of the host state. The analysis of each scenario first identifies the authority that governs whether and when the state may initiate forceful engagement with the non-state actor (the “may the state use force” evaluation), then discusses which legal regime governs the scope and nature of the resulting use of force (the “how may the state use force” evaluation). Different legal regimes govern the acting state’s options in each of the scenarios. Although the authority for action differs, the inquiries for Scenarios One and Two are quite similar. In Scenario One, the acting state may engage the non-state actor with force by virtue of its territorial sovereignty. It must act, however, through a domestic law enforcement framework and in compliance with human rights law. In Scenario Two, the acting state derives the authority to use force against the non-state actor from the host state’s consent. However, it may only rely on that consent insofar as it comports with the host state’s human rights obligations under international law. In raising the possibility of one state violating another state’s territorial integrity, Scenario Three raises a different set of questions. The intervening state’s threat or use of force within another state’s territory is only lawful when authorized by the U.N. Security Council or justified under the Charter’s Article 51 self-defense provision. The intervening state’s use of force is accordingly regulated by the traditional IHL of international armed conflict. Where scenarios overlap (when, for example, the intervening state has both consent and Article 51 authority to act), the acting state may rely on more than one source of authority. It must, however, continue to ensure that it has authority to use force and that its use of force comports with the legal framework appropriate for the nature and intensity of the conflict. It is worth noting at the outset that these scenarios highlight developing areas of international law. Some raise questions that have clear answers in existing legal authority, while others contend with more inchoate legal regimes. Where state practice has not yet solidified into definitive international norms, legal ambiguity remains. In such instances, this white paper notes the existence of ambiguity and examines the history, purposes, and principles of relevant legal regimes to proffer answers.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, Non State Actors, Law, and Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35188. Common Article 1 and Duty to "Ensure Respect"
- Author:
- Zachary Manfredi
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- This paper investigates whether the “to ensure respect” clause of Common Article 1 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions creates third state obligations. Third state obligations could impose both negative and positive duties on states to ensure that other states and some non-state actors comply with the Conventions. This issue has gained salience in light of the imminent publication of new set of commentaries on the Conventions by the International Committee for the Red Cross. The new commentaries will likely suggest that third state obligations under Common Article 1 are robust. This paper assesses the anticipated ICRC position in light of both the drafting history of Common Article 1 and subsequent interpretations by major international tribunals and states. It concludes that Common Article 1 provides for some third state obligations, but that their scope and content remains underspecified and highly contested.
- Topic:
- International Law, Humanitarian Crisis, Red Cross, and Geneva Convention
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35189. The Applicability of International and Domestic Immigration Law to Relocated Guantanamo Detainees
- Author:
- Sarah Weiner
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- The physical relocation of detainees from Guantanamo to the United States would not meaningfully alter U.S. obligations under domestic immigration law or international law concerning refoulement. Domestic immigration law would not affect U.S. authority to bring aliens into the United States and to detain those aliens under the laws of war. Detainees would not enter the United States as immigrants, but rather would remain legally “at the border” during their detention. If a detainee secures his release from law-of-war detention, then the United States would be prohibited from transferring the former detainee to a country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. This obligation applies equally to detainees held at Guantanamo and in the United States. If the United States could not find a suitable country to accept the former detainee, then the United States may have the authority to hold the alien indefinitely in immigration detention, provided that his custody meets statutory requirements. This authority is constitutionally untested and potentially inconsistent with obligations under international law, but these concerns would apply equally to both Guantanamo- and U.S.-located former detainees.
- Topic:
- Law, Prisons/Penal Systems, War on Terror, and Detention
- Political Geography:
- North America, United States of America, and Guantanamo
35190. State Responsibility for Non-State Actors That Detain In The Course of a NIAC
- Author:
- Emily Chertoff, Lara Dominguez, Zak Manfriedi, and Peter Tzeng
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School
- Abstract:
- This white paper addresses three questions that arise when a non-state actor that is receiving assistance from a state actor in a non-international armed conflict engages in detention activities: (1) Under international law, when does a non-state actor have the authority to detain individuals captured in the course of a non-international armed conflict? (2) When does a state providing assistance to a non-state actor become responsible under international law for the non- state actor’s actions? (3) Assuming such responsibility exists, what actions must the state take if it believes the non-state actor may engage in human rights abuses or violations of the law of armed conflict? In response to the first question, neither the Geneva Conventions nor customary international humanitarian law provides a legal basis for non-state actors to detain captured individuals in non-international armed conflicts. However, international humanitarian law also does not expressly prohibit non-state actors from detaining individuals. Instead, it regulates the conditions of detention. If non-state actors comply with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and relevant provisions of the Second Additional Protocol, detention by armed groups in non-international armed conflict does not violate an explicit provision of international humanitarian law. As long as detention is not arbitrary, internment by non-state actors is also unlikely to constitute the war crime of unlawful confinement. In response to the second question, under agency-based theories of the state responsibility doctrine, actions of non-state actors may be directly attributed to the state if (1) the state exercises either strict or overall control over the non-state actor such that the group operates as a de jure or de facto state organ or (2) the state exercises effective control over a specific operation undertaken by the non-state actor. Additionally, to the extent Common Article 1 requires states to ensure that all parties to an armed conflict respect the Geneva Conventions, it may create an alternative and additional source of state liability for the actions of non-state actors. Finally, in response to the third question, this white paper recommends a series of ex ante and ex post measures states can adopt when engaging with a non-state actor. These include, vetting, training, acquiring written agreements, providing punishment frameworks, and ceasing support when actors commit violations of IHL. Since existing jurisprudence does not contemplate mitigation of state responsibility for the conduct of non-state actors, it is difficult to assess to what extent any of the proposed measures would limit the state’s liability. Nevertheless, states adopting these recommendations will both make violations less likely and be more likely to discharge their duties under international humanitarian and human rights law. By taking ex ante measures designed to prevent violations and creating ex post incentives for non-state partners to comply with IHL norms, states reduce the risk armed groups will engage in detention practices that violate international law.
- Topic:
- International Law, Non State Actors, Humanitarian Intervention, and Armed Conflict
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35191. The Negative Impact of Drug Control on Public Health: the global crisis of avoidable pain
- Author:
- Global Commission On Drug Policy
- Publication Date:
- 10-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Global Commission On Drug Policy
- Abstract:
- Ninety-two percent of the world’s supply of morphine is consumed by just 17 percent of the global population, with consumption primarily concentrated in the global north and 75 percent of the world’s population does not have access to any pain relieving drugs. The reasons for this have little to do with issues of cost or scarcity of supplies- and everything to do with with the prohibition and repressive stand the world has taken on drugs. This Global Commission report explores the current crisis related to the lack of access to controlled medicines and makes concrete policy recommendations to Member States and UN agencies on ways to improve these conditions. This report is available in English, Spanish, Russian, French and Arabic.
- Topic:
- Health, War on Drugs, Drugs, Public Health, and Medicine
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35192. Time for European Politics
- Author:
- Vaclav Havel Library
- Publication Date:
- 05-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Vaclav Havel Library
- Abstract:
- The return of geopolitics to Europe from the East together with the publics‘ reaction to the spectre of immigration from the South has finally dawned on EU’s politicians. It is no longer possible to pretend that the „outside“ and the „inside“ can be kept apart. Europe‘s identity is being questioned with surprising intensity and in unexpected ways. Reactionary East- West political and cultural alliances are being forged, feeding and fed by nationalism, populist radicalism and antiliberal conservatism with Eurasian flavour. At the same time European citizens volunteer to take part in wars abroad, mirrored by and linked to acts of terrorism and violence in European countries. With state, institutions, parties and democratic politics in decline, what are the chances for peace and European democracy? We have to understand what is going on. Europeans inside the Union have to know how they are seen by our neighbours East, Southeast and South. What are their expectations? What do they want to achieve by joining the EU? What are they ready to sacrifice to reach that goal? On the other hand, we need to be clear what defines Europe’s own attitude towards others. Is it trade, economic interests, security or moral values? Can Europe still define its own ways or has it lost the initiative to others? Who can and should take action? The Ukraine crisis is forcing Europe to recognise that its post-Cold War order has reached its limits and needs to contend with harsh facts. Europe has to acknowledge the real world beyond its borders while focusing its energies on consolidating its own political space, which now also includes Ukraine.
- Topic:
- Civil Society, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and Democracy
- Political Geography:
- Europe
35193. Comparative Approaches to Reconciliation: Canada, United States of America, Australia and New Zealand
- Author:
- Ben J. Geboe
- Publication Date:
- 01-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
- Abstract:
- This paper examines the approaches taken by the Governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States to address the issue of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. A wide array of activities have been employed in these countries to improve relations with Indigenous communities. The paper notes that no single program or policy can address reconciliation, and that much remains to be done in order to achieve societies that are cognizant of the historical and contemporary contexts that have contributed to the current socio-economic reality of Indigenous peoples in the four countries examined. The definition of reconciliation is also complex and no single definition can be deemed to capture the dynamic of state and community relations. The review of policies and programs addressing reconciliation in the four countries examined is not exhaustive in nature. Programs and policies have been chosen based on government and community feedback indicating they were making a difference. From these experiences, key elements of programs and policies required to address reconciliation are compiled. The findings stress that reconciliation is a long-term process, based on truth, informed decision-making and accountability on the part of all partners involved. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) is used as a lens to observe whether it can be used to address reconciliation efforts in a constructive manner. Many experts argue that the spirit of the UNDRIP could act as a symbolic guide and framework to address reconciliation efforts. In conclusion, the paper notes that reconciliation efforts in each country will require support and long term commitment from all sectors of society. It will also require the renewal of a partnership based on mutual long-term goals and objectives. The partnership must be closely monitored, supported and be based on mutual respect and accountability if it is to flourish.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, United Nations, Indigenous, and Reconciliation
- Political Geography:
- Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and United States of America
35194. Social Innovation and Aboriginal Communities
- Author:
- Iryna Volynets
- Publication Date:
- 03-2015
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Institute for the Study of International Development, McGill University
- Abstract:
- Improving the lives and contributing to a more resilient society requires breakthrough ideas and approaches, game changing strategies and collaborations, and continuous innovation. Social innovation combines all of the above and is already bringing significant advances in areas such as reducing prisoner reoffending, caring for children and the elderly, community regeneration, financial inclusion, and supported housing. It has the potential to generate great benefits to the Indigenous communities in developed countries. While governments in Canada acknowledged the importance of social capital and social economy, and have been active in these areas in the recent years, a cross-sectoral national strategy to advance social innovation needs to be in place. There is no established labour market policy or program in Canada that would have social innovation aspects embedded in it as compared for example to the EU. The new policies are required for the further development of social finance and social enterprise sector. In September 2014, the Canadian National Advisory Board published the report Mobilizing Private Capital for Public Good: Priorities for Canada. The recommendations in the report for the domestic policy agenda are seen as a basis in this environmental scan for the potential future developments in the social innovation arena. More specific considerations for urban Aboriginal communities in Canada are also offered in this paper. Overall, this environmental scan attempts to (1) offer a vocabulary and an analysis of social innovation activity internationally and in Indigenous communities in particular, (2) discuss key issues and innovative approaches in labour market programming in Canada and abroad, and (3) offer considerations for Aboriginal communities in Canada to continue and expand the dialog with the policy makers. However, given the complexity of the issues that Aboriginal communities are facing, most considerations and recommendations are context-dependent and require further research. The research field of social innovation in the context of Aboriginal communities can be described as an opportunity not only to explore trust, balance, respect, and understanding in relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, but also to focus on the market-based strategies to achieve business targets while creating public social benefit. There still remains a gap in both literature documenting the statistics on Indigenous social enterprises and impact investing in Aboriginal businesses, the means of addressing issues in building Indigenous social enterprise pipeline, and the mechanisms in place for evaluating the effectiveness of the government or other programs targeted at improving Indigenous economic development through social innovation. Future research directions should focus on the abovementioned issues as well as on applications for innovations in job skills training and labour market programming in Canada and abroad.
- Topic:
- Government, Innovation, Indigenous, and Social Capital
- Political Geography:
- Canada and North America
35195. Understanding the Great Recession
- Author:
- Mario Seccareccia and Marc Lavoie
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- Some Fundamental Keynesian and Post-Keynesian Insights, with an Analysis of Possible Mechanisms to Achieve a Sustained Recovery Fears of deflation and long-term stagnation have become more commonplace since the Great Recession. Yet, within the mainstream, economists are divided into two camps: those who see the benefits of downward wage and price adjustment, as a private sector stabilizer, and those who fear deflationary pressures because of their destabilizing consequences. This paper reviews this theoretical literature using a simple “New Consensus” framework of analysis and it also seeks to describe how mainstream and heterodox economists analyzing the consequences of deflationary pressures come to very different conclusions on the nature of private sector stabilizers in a recessionary environment. After reviewing the different perspectives, the paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the experience of both the Great Depression and the Great Recession by looking at the behavior of certain key variables in three countries: Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. The paper concludes that, if it was not for the quick actions of governments in stabilizing the economy through activist macroeconomic policies during the Great Recession, private sector stabilizers were actually less significant during the recent crisis than they were during the 1930s.
- Topic:
- Economics, Global Recession, Economic Theory, Sustainability, and Economic Recovery
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35196. A Theory of How and Why Central-Bank Culture Supports Predatory Risk-Taking at Megabanks
- Author:
- Edward J. Kane
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- This paper applies Schein’s model of organizational culture to financial firms and their prudential regulators. It identifies a series of hard-to-change cultural norms and assumptions that support go-for-broke risk-taking by megabanks that meets the every-day definition of theft. The problem is not to find new ways to constrain this behavior, but to change the norms that support it by establishing that managers of megabanks owe duties of loyalty, competence, and care directly to taxpayers.
- Topic:
- Economic Theory, Central Bank, Risk, Fiscal Policy, and Banking
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35197. Veiled Repression: Mainstream Economics, Capital Theory, and the Distributions of Income and Wealth
- Author:
- Lance Taylor
- Publication Date:
- 12-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- The Cambridge UK vs USA capital theory debates of the 1960s showed that the workhorse mainstream growth model relies on unsustainable assumptions. Its standard interpretation is not consistent with the last four decades of data. Part of an estimated increase in the ratio of personal wealth to income in recent years is due to higher asset prices. The other side of the accounts reveals that financialization and growing business debt partially offset the greater net worth of households. Attempts to interpret growth in wealth principally as a consequence of capitalization of rents are misleading. An alternative growth model based on Cambridge ideas can help correct these misinterpretations.
- Topic:
- Economics, Income Inequality, Economic Theory, Repression, Capital, Redistribution, and Wealth
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
35198. Learning, Expectations, and the Financial Instability Hypothesis
- Author:
- Martin Guzman and Peter Howitt
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- This paper analyzes what assumptions on formation of expectations are consistent with Minsky’s Financial Instability Hypothesis (FIH) and its corollaries. The FIH establishes that financial relations evolve over time turning a stable system into an unstable one. Financial crises would be more likely to occur, and more severe if they occur, the longer the previous crisis recedes into the past. We show that the hypothesis is consistent with assumptions on formation of expectations that imply learning from realization of states and inconsistent with the assumption of full information rational expectations.
- Topic:
- Financial Crisis, Finance, Economic Theory, and Instability
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
35199. The American Dual Economy: Race, Globalization, and the Politics of Exclusion
- Author:
- Peter Temin
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- I describe the American economy in the twenty-first century as a dual economy in the spirit of W. Arthur Lewis. Similar to the subsistence and capitalist economies characterized by Lewis, I distinguish a low-wage sector and a FTE (Finance, Technology, and Electronics) sector. The transition from the low-wage to the FTE sector is through education, which is becoming increasingly difficult for members of the low-wage sector because the FTE sector has largely abandoned the American tradition of quality public schools and universities. Policy debates about public education and other policies that serve the low-wage sector often characterize members of the low-wage sector as black even though the low-wage sector is largely white. This model of a modern dual economy explains difficulties in many current policy debates, including education, healthcare, criminal justice, infrastructure and household debts.
- Topic:
- Economics, Education, Globalization, Race, Capitalism, Exclusion, and Public Service
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
35200. The Greek “Rescue”: Where Did the Money Go?
- Author:
- Pablo Gabriel Bortz
- Publication Date:
- 11-2015
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- This paper analyses the financial assistance provided to Greece in the first two rescue packages granted by the Troika (European Union, European Central Bank and IMF). It looks particularly carefully at claims by Sinn that a third of the public credit granted to Greece financed its current account deficit, while another third funded capital flight by Greek nationals, with only the remaining third used to pay creditors. The paper shows that Sinn inflates the assistance given to Greece by mixing several different concepts in the total. It also critically reviews the claim that the assistance was used to finance the current account deficit or capital flight by Greek citizens. Realistic accounting shows that 54% of the financial assistance provided to Greece was used to repay (foreign) debt, while another 21% was used to recapitalize Greek banks (some of which were owned by foreign institutions). Other claims about the rescue package are also analysed in relation to the treatment of Greek and foreign banking exposure to sovereign debt.
- Topic:
- Economics, Finance, Banking, and Development Assistance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Greece